


coming for gold

by blueincandescence



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: F/M, Olympics AU, athletic puns, first chapter media, romcom tropes, sexcapades at peak physical condition, subsequent chapters prose, talk dirty to me, the title should say everything about the intent and seriousness of this piece, unlicensed spycraft
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-17
Updated: 2016-10-05
Packaged: 2018-08-09 10:23:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 26,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7798138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueincandescence/pseuds/blueincandescence
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At Rio 2016, judoka Illya Kuryakin and rhythmic gymnast Gaby Teller, former UNCLE ambassadors, find themselves in the spotlight less for their gold medal ambitions and more for their heated breakup. With Russia and Germany in a full-tilt competition, the ex-lovers are banned from working out the tension sizzling between them — not that rules have ever stopped them before. But it won't just be competitive rivalry and hurt feelings coming between them when THRUSH gets involved.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. blame the media

**Author's Note:**

> [aesthetics](http://blueincandescence.tumblr.com/tagged/gallyaolympics)  
> [tumblr](http://blueincandescence.tumblr.com)  
>  All my graphics, vids, and mixes for gallya are [here](http://blueincandescence.tumblr.com/search/otp%3A-i-need-a-partner+bluemade) and for TMFU are [here](http://blueincandescence.tumblr.com/search/rather-a-good-queue+bluemade).

**‘B-Mat’ Rivalry Heating Up Between Germany and Russia**

_Mark Lin, ESPN Olympics, 12 July 2016_

Weightlifting, taekwondo, judo, rhythmic gymnastics, trampoline — collectively known as the B-Mats, these Summer Olympics events share the mats, so to speak, with A-list competitions like gymnastics, wrestling, and boxing. Lesser watched mat events, historically dominated by a handful of Soviet satellites, have seldom drawn fanfare.

But in Rio 2016, an unexpected, intense rivalry between Russia and Germany has catapulted the B-Mats onto the popular radar.

Since the preliminaries, athletes from Russia and Germany have been neck and neck in predictions for individual and team gold in all five B-Mat categories. With the United States, China, Japan, Great Britain, and Australia expected to take home the majority of the gold in Rio, Russia and Germany have pinned their hopes for national glory on sweeping the B-Mats.

[...]

_Mark Lin is a sportswriter from Los Angeles. For two weeks every two years, Lin lives in a star spangled tracksuit and chants himself to sleep to the dulcet tones of “U.S.A.! U.S.A.!” For the Rio 2016 Games, Lin will be running a series titled “It Takes a Village” dedicated to the interpersonal relationships of competitors._

* * *

**theoneandonly**

**@mark_lin**

for the original ‘heated’ b-mat story, see the kuryakin/teller affair. fireworks in rio guaranteed.

_12 Jul 16_

* * *

**direct messages > with theoneandonly**

_mark_lin:_ Kuryakin/Teller Affair could be something. I remember the slap-kiss engagement last Games. Didn’t hear about breakup. Fireworks hard to determine via Google Translate. Tips?

 _theoneandonly:_ oh, i have icebergs. believe me.

 _mark_lin:_ Planning on sinking a ship? What’s your interest?

 _theoneandonly:_ petty revenge. i had my favorite caterer on retainer. he only does weddings.

 _mark_lin:_ Uhhuh. So how do I get my readers to care about Kuryakin/Teller as much as you care about crab cakes?

 _theoneandonly:_ it’s the bacon-wrapped scallops i’m after.

 _theoneandonly:_ but let’s start in rome, shall we?

* * *

**Messages > chop shop**

You aren’t fooling anyone with that fake twitter handle <

Whatever you’re planning, stop now <

> and here i thought i was being so subtle

You don’t know the meaning of the word subtle. Or the word over. As in Illya and I. Over <

> sure i do. let me use it in a sentence:

> you’ll thank me when it’s over.

Don’t pretend you aren’t afraid of me, Solo <

> fine. you’ll see no more tweets from me.

I had better not <

Now please explain to me the hideous Team U.S.A. uniforms <

> i’ll make it work.

> you should have heard our russian friend, though. he called me straight away with a litany.

As if all-wise, all-knowing master Oleg would allow him phone privileges this close to the Games <

> he’s pushing the envelope this year.

> _attached: contact — the red peril_

> see for yourself.

Stop <

* * *

**Record-Breaking Condom Order Titillates Olympics Fans**

_Mark Lin, ESPN Olympics, 30 Jul 2016_

A record-breaking 450,000 condoms ordered in advance of the Rio Games — that’s 42 per athlete — has reinvigorated interest in the sex lives of Olympians. These athletes are at peak physical condition but have often forgone personal relationships in pursuit of Olympic gold. For that reason, Olympic Village is a powderkeg for these like-minded, hard-bodied competitors.

[...]

Such stories of the notorious promiscuity at Olympic Village have long fascinated Olympics fans, but it’s the tales of romance that have captured their hearts. The Olympics are a supercharged venue for engagements.

In London 2012, Russian judoka Illya Kuryakin surprised German rhythmic gymnast Gaby Teller with an engagement ring at the podium where she was receiving her first Olympic gold. In a move that had feminists cheering and meninists clutching their pearls, 5’5” Teller slapped 6’5” Kuryakin across the face — presumably for stealing her thunder — before dragging him in for a sultry kiss that ended with her legs wrapped around his torso. The couple refused interviews afterwards, but their respective Olympics committees issued apologies on their behalf. Sadly, it seems Kuyriakin and Teller have broken off their engagement, leaving fans to speculate whether there will be anymore slap-kiss at their reunion in Rio.

* * *

**Messages < the red peril**

> www.espn.com/olympics/rio2016/ittakesavillage/record-breaking-condom-order

They must have increased order when you qualified. <

> ha! that’s the nicest insult you’ve ever given me, peril.

> scroll to the end.

> you can thank me in rio.

This cannot be real. <

> gaby is furious.

> has she contacted you yet?

This meddling of yours will not help what is between us. Get back onto your horse, Cowboy. <

> et tu, comrade?

* * *

**@mark_lin**

**k.anderson**

THE SLAPKISS COUPLE BROKE UP???? SAY IT AIN’T SO @MARK_LIN! #devestated #bestpartofLondon2012

_30 Jul 2016_

* * *

  **THRUSH Spokesman Condemns Russian Doping Scandal**

_Mark Lin, ESPN Olympics, 30 Jul 2016_

No one knows exactly what THRUSH stands for, but the international lobbying organization has tasked itself with making the Olympics “pure” again. Advocates say that means banning all illegal physical stimulants from international athletic competition. Critics warn there is a nasty message about ‘good breeding’ at the core of the group’s philosophy. In any case, THRUSH has come out swinging against the doping scandal that has rocked the Russian Olympics team.

Spokesman Dr. Rudi von Trüsch engaged with media outlets after his controversial radio broadcast this morning.

* * *

**@mark_lin**

**DeutschAva**

Tidbit: Von Trüsch is the estranged uncle of @GabyTeller, ex-fiance of Russia’s Illya Kuryakin. #isntthatinteresting #russiagermanyfeud

_30 Jul 2016_

* * *

**direct messages > with mark_lin**

_theoneandonly:_ BREAKING NEWS: OLYMPIC SEX BAN BETWEEN RUSSIA AND GERMANY. hush-hush but official policy. you heard it here first.

 _mark_lin:_ That’s a hell of a headline. You sure you aren’t a journalist?

 _theoneandonly:_ i'm a man of too many callings, too little time.

 _mark_lin:_ And what’s the likelihood our pair breaks said ban. Rough estimate.

 _theoneandonly:_ if you like it rough, mark, let me put it to you this way:

 _theoneandonly:_ in all the infinite universes in all of space and time there exists not one where illya kuryakin and gaby teller can resist fucking each other in an olympic village.

 _mark_lin:_ Nice. I can already hear the clicks.

* * *

**Russia-Germany Anti-Fraternization Policies Spark Interest in Olympian Breakup**

_Mark Lin, ESPN Olympics, 01 Aug 2016_

The Rio 2016 rivalry between Russia and Germany has been brewing for months. Now rumors are swirling that both countries’ Olympic committees have mandated new policies of conduct intended to eliminate fraternization between Team Russia and Team Germany. The details of these policies are unclear, but their draconian allure has garnered the attention of Olympics fans and bloggers.

Adding fuel to the interest is a one-time romance that has become retroactively star-crossed.

Team Russia’s judo powerhouse Illya Kuryakin, 26, and Team Germany’s top rhythmic gymnast Gabriella Teller, 23, are expected to win big for their feuding countries — less than a year after the couple broke off their engagement, which grabbed headlines at the 2012 London Games.

Their breakup at the semi-finals passed without notice, but now the blogosphere is abuzz with speculation.

Some blame long distance and grueling training schedules. An insider and close friend of the couple cites the Russian’s “notorious temper” mixing badly with the German’s “sharp tongue” — comments that have only stoked the fires of interest for when the couple reunites in Rio.

* * *

**@mark_lin**

**dave_d**

O.M.GOODNESS. I can’t get enough of the Kuryakin/Teller Affair. DISH. #ishiprussiagermany #slapkissgold

_1 Aug 2016_

* * *

**@mark_lin**

**OlympiadFever**

Why aren’t we talking about how he’s in the heavyweight class for judo (220+lbs) and she’s the teeniest kind of gymnast there is??? #TOLANDSMOL #slapkissgold

_2 Aug 2016_

* * *

**Messages < chop shop**

> teller, let’s talk rio plans. when do you land?

Land my fist in your face you mean <

> excuse me?

I blame you for this circus <

> me??? blame the media. i kept my word.

I am blaming you and I am never speaking to you again <

> that’s a bit harsh. you’ll come around.

* * *

**'Olympic Playboy' Diver Napoleon Solo Steals Headlines, Hearts**

_Mark Lin, ESPN Olympics, 02 Aug 2016_

With a name like Napoleon Solo, a face like a movie star, and the body of Poseidon, there was no way that the 27-year-old diver was going to live in anyone's shadow. The Olympic gold medal contender has no competition to speak of in his own diving category — instead, he's been locked in friendly competition with Swim U.S.A. teammate Michael Phelps for number of covershoots on the road to Rio.

* * *

**Messages < chop shop**

> www.espn.com/olympics/rio2016/ittakesavillage/olympic-playboy-diver-napoleon-solo

> mark lin should win a pulitzer for his olympics coverage.

> ...

> gabs.

> i can hear you fuming a continent away.

* * *

**Messages < the red peril**

> www.espn.com/olympics/rio2016/ittakesavillage/olympic-playboy-diver-napoleon-solo

> mark lin should win a pulitzer for his olympics coverage.

What does this have to do with diving? >

> so dour. german sex ban got you frustrated?

Not your business. >

For eight years not your business. >

> easy, peril. it’s good for you. you will win every gold for glory of russia.

* * *

**Messages < chop shop**

> www.espn.com/olympics/rio2016/stylistic-competitors-breathe-life-into-rhythmic-gymnasts

> mark lin pitched that rhythmics gymnastics piece with your name attached.

> espn has never covered rhythmic gymnastics before.

> you’re getting press.

> i don’t even want a thank you.

> a simple thumbs up emoji would suffice.

* * *

**Messages < the red peril**

> what’s our plan for day one? beach or mountain?

I will be with my team in training. <

> ever dutiful. when can you sneak away?

There is more pressure this Olympics. It cannot be the same. <

> agree to disagree.

* * *

**Messages < chop shop**

> oh, quick question. are rhythmic gymnastics gold medals made smaller than gold medals for real events?

Why don’t I shove the one I’m about to win up your arse and we’ll find out? <

> there’s my girl. missed ya. see you soon!

* * *

**‘Cold War’ Brewing Between UNCLE Ambassadors Turned Olympic Rivals**

_Mark Lin, ESPN Olympics, 04 August 2016_

The ‘Kuryakin/Teller Affair’ has taken the Olympics-obsessed corner of the twitterverse by storm. The hashtag #slapkissgold is in reference to the dynamic engagement of Illya Kuryakin and Gaby Teller at the London 2012 Games. The Russian and German Olympians now face official penalties from their respective coaches if they so much as take a stroll through Olympic Village together.

The third Olympics showing for both, Teller and Kuryakin met as teens through the United Network for Competitor Learning and Exchange (UNCLE), a program designed to foster friendship between international athletes.

UNCLE is the brainchild of former British Olympic sailor Alexander Waverly, second son of the Earl of Brinscote. “So much pressure is placed on top performing athletes at such a young age,” Waverly said, speaking of his reasons for forming the program. “I thought it rather a good idea to bring them together with their peers in a competition-free environment. Let them just be young people.”

As ambassadors for UNCLE, Kuryakin and Teller attended Beijing 2008, Kuryakin winning gold and Teller winning silver in their respective events. The judoka and rhythmic gymnast returned to the Games in London 2012 as a couple and proved good luck to each other — both took home gold. Now the two will attend the 2016 games as rivals due to mounting competition between their two nations as much as their now star-crossed failed romance.

Both Kuryakin and Teller declined to comment on their sudden internet fame. Their ‘UNCLE’ Waverly expressed his disappointment in the split, saying, “They were two of my very first Ambassadors, so it’s rather a shame to see that they are no longer close.” An insider and friend of the couple put the estrangement in harsher terms: “They haven’t spoken since the breakup. It’s a Cold War, and Rio 2016 is their Cuban Missile Crisis.”

Ready the hashtags, twitterverse. Bay of Pigs starts tomorrow at the Opening Ceremony.


	2. fireworks are guaranteed

At Tegel, Gaby slips smiling into the routine of queuing up with her teammates. How much of her life could be chalked up to shuttling between competitions? Eighteen years of mounting annoyance at errant elbows, wired chatter has dissipated into anticipatory nostalgia. One more medal around her neck and she’ll have nothing left to prove to herself. Gaby is about to step onto her first one-way flight. She's giddy with choice.

Above the cacophony of well-wishers, the sound of her name snaps her back to present problems. _"Fraulein Teller! Fraulein Teller! What are you more nervous for? Your performance or your ex?"_ The staccato of camera clicks activate her better judgment after she's already reeled around, too late to wipe the glare from her face. The vultures have captured that piece of her to do with what they like. Frame her in a little box with a little caption, share her on Twitter — #shessocute #whenshesangry.

Thirteen hours and fifty-five minutes to Rio de Janeiro is ample time to concoct increasingly elaborate revenge schemes in between bouts of sleep. Convincing the population of Olympic Village that Napoleon Solo has a virulent strain of chlamydia wouldn’t be much of a stretch. The trick would come with making the risk not seem worth it.

But visions of wiping the smug off of Solo’s face are a shoddy distraction. Only one other person in the world is better at it than Gaby is. Even in the abstract, Illya fills the empty seat beside her. Crowds her and nudges her and reminds Gaby of the time she hot-wired Waverly’s speedboat and Illya powered them through chopping, rolling waves, egging Solo on to take his wakeboard and prove it. Gott, the look on Solo’s face when he went flying sideways over top of the boat —

Gaby laughs out loud, a short, sharp sound she punctuates by grinding down on an ice cube. She’d have flown off the boat faster than Solo were it not for Illya’s arm anchoring her to his side. Gaby chomps another ice cube. Orders another drink while she can get it. Tugs at her seatbelt, the phantom weight wound around her waist.

There is a gold ring zipped into the inside pocket of the bright orange Team Germany duffle bag at her feet. She can taste the bite of the gold medal she will replace it with.

What is she more nervous for?

* * *

They’re two to a room in Olympic Village, as usual. Most of Team Germany arrived last week and reported that their suites were compact but nothing like the horror stories Team Australia had to deal with. When she drops her duffle onto her narrow bed she hears Illya’s dissatisfied grumble in the answering springs. In London, they ended up appropriating his absent roommate’s mattress and building themselves a nest on the floor. Solo had taken this anecdote to support his claim that the tiny beds were a net positive. The limitation imbued all involved with a sense of adventure.

When her roommate steps out, Gaby sits on the edge of her bed with her elbows on her knees and her chin on her fists. She either drank too much on the flight or not enough. She’s got an image in her mind she can’t shake. Illya pulling the sheet down over their heads and kissing pleas for five more minutes into her skin.

Back home in Berlin, the Illya who invades her thoughts is the Illya who takes an eternity to loosen up on Skype, who asks after her friends and her night school and her cars but gives her little besides his mother to ask after in return. Who agrees to take a month off of training to plan their wedding together — to just exist within the whole scope of each other’s lives. But who postpones for Oleg and postpones for the Ministry of Sports and postpones for a photo op with Putin until it is made crystal clear to her that their lives together will always be postponed. That is the Illya whose ring she has no qualms about returning. They've wasted enough of each other's time. They'll have no hope of being friends again one day if they don't make a clean break now.

One meeting, two adults wishing each other well. The trouble is, she’ll be meeting with Olympics Illya. UNCLE Illya. Illya in the flesh. Gaby can already feel herself softening, resolve weathered by the force of how much she misses him.

The Opening Ceremony isn’t for hours and she’s already forgetting why these Games have to be different. Sixteen days of consummate professionalism. She isn’t a gottverdammt meme.

Gaby drops back onto the cold mattress. Sixteen days.

Not enough to drink, she decides. There aren't a lot of options. The Village is dry, and even Team Germany limits the amount of alcohol an athlete can carry. She has three bottles of vodka in her luggage but texts Solo instead. He's been here a week and no doubt has the place wired.

She knows it’s a white flag. Gaby is learning to pick her battles.

* * *

The largest local bar nearest to the Village, already dubbed the Getaway by early arrival teams, is abuzz with outright flirtation poorly approximating conversation. Gaby can tell the newbies from the veteran Olympians by the amount of effort placed in wardrobe. She herself is in spandex shorts and a long cotton tank, and she almost loses a toe to what must be a volleyball player in six-inch metallic heels.

Solo told her he’d be seated on the left near the back, but his presence has shifted the physics of the room such that he’s holding court in the center of everything. He is wearing a tailored jacket and designer jeans. Neither of which, of course, make him look like a try-hard.

He calls her name brightly when he spots her. She folds her arms and waits for him to come to her and kiss her cheek and compliment her outgrown bangs before she warms up enough to let him lead her by the hand out of the chaos. Gaby can feel herself move to the top of several dozen fantasy hit lists as they go.

In the outdoor section, a waiter, who is nearly as stunning as the hot and bothered bunch inside, appears the moment they are seated to deliver two sinfully large, vibrant cocktails. As his final act of appeasement, Solo waves a pair of white vintage sunglasses and places them on the table between them. She accepts both gifts as her due.

“I want you to know, I’m only trying to help,” he starts, but she puts up a hand and makes a point of drinking. The fact that he used the present tense doesn’t sink in until the waiter returns with a whiskey neat.

Gaby stands up, chair catching concrete. “You invited him?”

The back of her neck is already so hot she doesn’t feel Illya until he’s rumbling, practically in her ear, “I invited myself.”

Gaby wheels around and has to steady herself on the table, craning back to glare into his face. Illya is taking her in with deliberation. When his heavy gaze falls on her chest her nipples react as if to the touch of his hands, tucked at the moment behind his back.

“How rude of you.” Her voice hits too high a note, body betraying her once more. She isn’t ready for him now. She was supposed to have time.

Illya’s eyes meet hers. They’re so blue, bluer than they ever were in the weak London sun or the Beijing haze. “You would not allow me to come to you in Berlin. This was the only way, I think.”

The fine hairs on the back of her neck all but catch fire. The reason she hadn’t let him come after their last fight is infused into his tone, his posture. It is easier to deal with his iced-over fury long distance. So rigid. So formal.

“Oh? For what?” She indicates with a flip of her wrist the many eyes who could see them, Team Russia and Team Germany. “Should be good. You’re risking quite a lot.”

His lips, which she knows can be so generous, thin. “I concluded this was best course of action, considering” — here, his eyes flick behind her shoulder to Solo — “the situation we find ourselves in. Russian Committee agreed.”

If she had the ring on her, this is the moment Gaby would have hurled it at him. She isn’t dealing with her Illya or even long distance Illya. She’s dealing with Coach Oleg’s fearsome, humorless machine. The one she and Solo had begun the work of deprogramming their very first summer with UNCLE. Yet here he is before her, recalibrated to perfect Arschloch.

“We will have a drink and shake hands afterward,” he is saying. “If you are amenable, there is Russian photographer across the street.” The tight, bland smile he gives her indicates that she will, of course, be amenable.

Gaby understands now how anger can cause Illya’s fingers to twitch.

Solo must be able to see the Herculean effort it is taking her not to claw Illya’s eyes out because he interjects in a warning tone, “Illya — ”

“I am cleaning after your mess, Solo.”

His attention focused elsewhere, she can take a breath. Make a choice.

“Have you read the disrespectful things they write about — ”

“Clean up after this mess,” Gaby interrupts and dumps the rest of her cocktail down the front of Illya’s pristine Team Russia track jacket.

Illya pulls away from her in shock.

She mimics his bland smile. Then gathers her things and stalks off, sunglasses coming down over her eyes like she’s headed into war.

Behind her, Solo, sotto-voiced, just has to get the last word in: “Smoothly done.”

* * *

Most of Team Germany has made it to the Getaway by the time Gaby stomps back in, having ignored Solo’s pursuit and taken a lap around the Village. One of the artistic gymnasts orders her a shot the second she spots the thunder and lightning clouding Gaby’s face. She almost chokes on it when the youngest of the rhythmic team knocks into her.

Della sobers immediately. “Es tut mir leid, Großmutter.” The nickname is one she earned at the ripe old age of twenty-two.

Another rhythmic team competitor, Betül, shakes a Haribo bag in front of Gaby’s face. “Gummibärchen?” Her tone is placating.

Ever since that gottverdammt tweet, it’s been the same. Don’t rile Gaby. Don’t say anything about you-know-what or you-know-who. Don’t make her angry. Not because they fear her anger. They pity it. She’s gone through a breakup, so she must be broken. Never mind that she is. They reduce her feelings to a hundred and forty characters, to the size of a gummy bear. Gaby takes one from the pack and gnashes it between her teeth. She’s been trying to act above it all, but what’s the point? They see what they expect to see. They may pity her anger, but it excites them all the same.

Like throwing a drink, giving in is childish at best. And, verdammt, does it feel good. Why not give them a version of herself she can stand?

Gaby calls over the five rhythmic team competitors. They aren’t the only members of Team Germany listening when Gaby tells them, _"My baby swans, you'll think of your grandmother when you beat the Russians, yes?"_ The six of them cheers to that, others joining.

Another shot in, Gaby breaks the central tenet of UNCLE — she begins to shit talk the competition. _"They aren’t athletes, they’re science experiments."_ She evokes the doping scandal, ignores that her gut flips with disloyalty. Gaby was born three years after her East German relatives brought down the Wall, but she calls them Soviets all the same.

A taekwondoist near the back of the German group that has gathered around toasts, “Wir sind das Volk! _We are the people!"_ The Monday demonstration chant is nonsensical but gets the hype job done. They’re singing the national anthem before too long. Gaby stands on a barstool and conducts with her arms.

Scattered members of Team Russia come together, arms crossed under their frowns. Team Germany gets louder, united around a common foe. Gaby leading the charge.

Solo is in the crowd, impassive as usual.

He sidles up to her when the burst of patriotism fades back into general hedonism. “I’m not sure you’ve thought this through.”

Gaby thrusts her chin out, finding plenty of archness within her to ask, “Is this not what you wanted?”

“I only wanted the three of us to be able to have a drink together in beautiful Rio de Janeiro.” He sounds so wounded.

She scoffs.

“That back there — ” Solo searches his charm for a halfway decent excuse and lands on, “That was just pride talking. You did the dumping if you recall.”

Gaby shakes her head, tongue against her teeth. The next sixteen days are spread before her in full technicolor possibility. She finds she is amenable after all. Give the people what they want, because it’s the last thing Illya wants. Enemy of my enemy. This is her last hurrah. #slapkissgold was just a pre-show.

“Let your reporter friend know, fireworks are guaranteed — because I say so.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had to make a couple ninja edits because I decided to, like, do some research. Olympic Village is *gasp* DRY! I mean, it's good to give your characters obstacles to overcome but geez. Poor Gabs.


	3. handle your woman

****Team Russia enters Maracana stadium to an ovation that oscillates, cheers to jeers and back again, as they pass. Illya keeps a mechanical rhythm with his arm, his legs. The walk is over in an instant, whether because their team is a third the size this year or because Illya is in another stadium entirely.

The booing of the crowd, though fainter than his mother feared, is amplified by echoes of shame that stretch back twenty years. Illya’s posture is his father’s, which never faltered even as his crimes against the integrity of his sport were revealed. An abrupt tug on his sleeve jerks Illya out of that other stadium and back into this one. Everyone else stopped waving long before.

Heat replaces some of the ice in his veins, not unlike the sensation of a frozen drink melting against his skin during the long walk back to his room this afternoon. A sea of nations separates Team Russia from Team Germany. It’s the span of a breath compared to the long months he has been apart from Gaby.

Only the force of her glare had stopped him from claiming that breath. That glare that mutated the ups and downs of their relationship into a bad smell. As if his continued existence on this planet now that she was done with him was a personal insult to her. He could have pinched the flare from those delicate little nostrils. He could have taken her stubborn shoulders in his hands and shaken some sense into her. He could have told her why he needed to present her polite smile to the Russian Commission, but that would mean admitting he was planning for his future as if it were still theirs.

And, anyway, she wouldn’t have heard him. Gaby never did want to talk about the practical realities of their lives together. Where they’d live, how’d they’d pay bills. To hear her tell it, they’d spend the rest of their lives backpacking on an infinite loop, hitting every country they’d only seen from the inside of a sports arena and then some.

Illya is nudged again. His team has turned to face a different direction. He rights himself quickly, but not quickly enough for his distraction to be missed by his coach. Oleg’s frown is deep enough for shame to echo in Illya’s mind again.

When at last the closing fireworks blast overhead, Team Russia leaves the stadium as quickly as they came in. Illya, alert now, follows his team to a smaller conference room, where the Russian press has set up blue backdrops for individual interviews. He answers their questions about the competition. He’s looking forward to going up against France, always a worthy adversary. Japan and Israel are also contenders, very different kinds of challenges. No, he doesn’t believe he will see Germany in the gold medal final. The rivalry is artificial.

An English-speaking voice breaks through then — “What about your personal rivalry with Gabriella Teller of Team Germany?”

The interviews nearest to Illya’s drop mid-sentence. The Russian press have avoided the topic. Evoking Gaby’s name means evoking her wins over Irada Nefedyeva, Russia’s darling girl.

A hand clamps onto Illya’s shoulder as his coach leans between him and the microphone. Oleg asks, “And where might our guest be joining us from? You don’t sound Chinese.”

The American journalist ignores the microaggression UNCLE sensitized Illya to, choosing instead to offer a small wave. He’s dressed head to toe in Tom Ford business casual, vest and tennis shoes and all. Illya doesn’t need him to say, “Mark Lin, ESPN,” to know he was handpicked by Solo to be the ringleader of his media circus. Solo never misses the opportunity to arrange something for himself on the side.

“I would have thought ESPN would teach their reporters how to tell apart judoka from rhythmic gymnasts,” Oleg says.

Lin joins in the swell of humor this time. “No, I just heard there was an altercation earlier today between Ms. Teller and Mr. Kuryakin. I was wondering if I could get his comment on that.” He looks to Oleg, waiting on permission.

Ice flows from Oleg’s tightening grip on his shoulder, permission granted. Illya must be the one to answer for that failure. “This is not — ” He stops himself. The Solo type do not care what is their business and what is not. “I — This is Olympics.” Illya, distracted by Oleg’s scrutiny, manages only, “I am coming for gold not coming for woman.”

The reporters are silent, save for Lin’s huff of poorly concealed laughter. Illya can all but hear Solo and Gaby joining in. Hadn’t that been their way? Even after they decided the gangly Russian with the bad English and the bad father was worth their friendship, hadn’t they always found him a wellspring for their amusement?

Leaning into the microphone, Illya booms, “I came to Olympics as an athlete to bring honor to myself, my sport, and my country. I presume you came as a sportswriter not a gossip columnist. These questions are beneath us both, yes?” That earns him a pat from Oleg.

“Well, thank you for your time,” Lin says. His eyebrows are in his hairline and his hand is writing furiously. He spares a glance over his shoulder as he leaves. “Good luck.”

His warning tone reminds Illya of Solo’s message from earlier: ‘Gaby owns the circus now.’

* * *

Illya mulls over the possible meanings of that on a late night jog, his headlamp bobbing in the darkness of the loop around Olympic Village.

Gaby teaming up with the media is absurd given how vehemently she protested the spectacle made of their engagement. Though she spared his feelings — was in fact excessively tender toward him, he supposed to make up for her less than flattering initial reaction — he overheard her chiding Solo for not dissuading Illya of his grand romantic intentions. His father had proposed to his mother from atop the winner’s podium, but Illya can admit now that he should have known better than to think the gesture would translate. Gaby hates prying eyes as much as she hates curfews and liquor laws and strong suggestions that UNCLE ambassadors not date to avoid, well, exactly what had happened to them.

Illya exchanges a nod with a fellow jogger, taking her advice to hang a left to avoid a party that’s sprawled into the tree-lined path, all raucous Brazilian music and multilingual chatter. Half a dozen nightclubs and just as many bars up and down the beach outside the Village and still they aren’t satisfied. They’ll be drinking in the training facilities next. Statistics say that Olympians are older than ever, but at exactly average age Illya feels ancient in comparison.

The sight of a bonfire ringed by undulating shadows makes him slow. Nevermind the code violations, the last thing Olympic Village needs is reports of a full-on bacchanalia. The Western media’s obsession with sexualizing every aspect of the Games is indulged enough.

He spots Gaby before he admits to himself that he’s looking for her in the Team Germany-heavy crowd. Her twirling legs are a shimmering gold in the firelight. She’s shed the drab gray leggings, skirt, and jacket that made up the travesty of her team’s Opening Ceremony uniform. The baggy maroon sweater by itself is high fashion on Gaby, the collar falling to the tops of her shoulder to expose the elegant sweep of her collarbones. The hem bounces up and down the lean lines of her thighs.

As if his thoughts are broadcasting, Gaby turns in his direction and shields her eyes. Illya fumbles to turn off his headlamp. He backs further off the path, flushing in the darkness.

Attention mercifully back on the party, Gaby takes a Team Brazil footballer by the hand the way she’d taken his that first summer. The footballer spins her into a vigorous samba routine that Gaby matches step for step. She’s liquid in the arms of a man who can manage more than an awkward side-shuffle.

How many of those men have there been in nearly a year? It’s an idiotic question to ask himself. He and Gaby were each other’s firsts but he has to think back several short-term breakups to remember a time when they were each other’s only. It’s idiotic, too, to feel a surge of hate for the Brazilian footballer. To make him a stand-in for the faceless men that have passed through Gaby’s life when Illya was too far away to fight them off. But, then, Illya is in an idiotic position, crouched behind a tree like a radiolokator, a Peeping Tom.

The impromptu routine ends on a dip that earns wolf-whistles. Gaby’s head is centimeters off the ground, her right leg fully extended in the air. The footballer puts her upright and takes a knee to kiss the back of her hand. She curtsies to her lothario, the party at large, then turns around to spread a deep bow to Illya.

His flush brightens like a spotlight. Of course she spotted him, the two-meter tall leering shadow that he is. Gaby’s laughter propels Illya to literally run from her. And not solely out of embarrassment.

He’s remembering something else about Gaby’s reaction to their engagement coverage. Her ass firmly planted in his lap, hips circling with intent as she scrolled through photographs of the kiss she’d laid on him taken from every possible angle. Gaby may hate prying eyes, but what is a performer without her audience? Illya resolves not to let himself be drawn into her show. Even if it means letting this wasted time between them continue.

Illya had lied to Solo's pot-stirring reporter, of course. Unfortunate turn of phrase notwithstanding, he'd come for both. He hoped to leave Rio the way he’d left London: with a new personal best and a fiancée.

Not an entirely delusional hope. The sheer amount of time they've put into each other, to Illya, counts for everything. When they met, he was a teenager with zilch in the way of social skills. Angry. Instantly combative with the brash American and the snarky German, who formed a strained sort of alliance against him from day one. The three of them, each with a reputation for overcompetitiveness, were a pilot program for Waverly. If he could make UNCLE work with them, he could make it work with anyone. And they have worked, the three of them, for almost a decade. They fight, they lose touch — but they always come back together. Gaby has kept his ring, a telling move for someone who values closure. He is patient. 

Given that Gaby’s plans for them seem to be diametrically opposed to his own for the time being, Illya will settle for making it through the next two and a half weeks with his record and his dignity intact.

* * *

His dignity takes a hit a matter of hours later, when he returns from an early morning workout to find every teammate he passes, including his roommate, is fascinated by the carpet. In the privacy of the bathroom, he pulls up Twitter on his phone. He’s only mildly frustrated at the ridiculously small size of the buttons by the time he finds it — ‘coming for gold’ is both a hashtag and a budding meme.

The top hit is a picture of Gaby mid-routine, both her legs over her head, feet pointed toward the floor, pelvis thrust toward the camera. It took her months to master that technique. The caption reads, ‘cumming 4 her’ in big blocky letters. There are several more pictures, variations on that theme.

He wrings his phone to keep himself from tossing it onto his bed through the bathroom wall. He shouldn’t blame himself, but Illya hates that he’s contributed to her disrespect. Gaby will shrug it off in that infuriating way of hers. After her her first World Championship in Baku, he punched out a man three times her age for giving her flowers with a picture of his flaccid cock tucked inside the bouquet. Later, she yelled at Illya for making a scene. What did he expect, she demanded. Everyone knew that rhythmic gymnastics was invented by Russian perverts.

Illya follows a link to Lin’s article and discovers in the comments that his gossip columnist jibe has outed him as a rampant sexist and all but confirms that he is, as has been speculated, an abusive partner. Illya offers thanks to the universe at large that his mother, as a rule, is uninterested in the goings on of the internet. He wants nothing more than to dress down his accusers, but he hasn’t made a Twitter account to school himself against that very urge. Illya also refrains from responding to a string of texts from Solo, who must learn the virtues of boundaries.

He showers instead, which cools him down enough to ignore the continued avoidance of his teammates as he boards the shuttle to Carioca Arena 2.

Surrounding himself with over three hundred of the world’s best judokas is a welcome relief. He is in his element walking between the mats, offering suggestions to the younger Russian competitors who hang on his every word.

The judo tournament, which will last for seven days, opens with qualifying matches for the extra-lightweight men’s and women’s categories. Illya won’t compete until the final day, when he will match with four challengers on his way to gold. In his early career, he wrestled at the top of the -100kg weight class, but his transition to the 100kg+ category has made him a better competitor. Though he is only three or four kilos into his weight class at his heaviest, Illya enjoys the variety that comes with wrestling masterclass judokas who range so widely in weight and height.

He notices the first Russian competitor of the day is wringing her hands so he goes over to offer any assistance he can. That’s when he sees what’s gotten her spooked. A few dozen members of Team Germany have taken over a section of the arena, flags at the ready. Across the mat, the German women's extra-lightweight contender greets her countrymen with enthusiasm.

Gaby is — where else? — at the front of the mob, one hand cupped to the side of her face to instigate a chant.

His words of comfort to the Russian competitor, that this match is no more or less important than any of the dozens she has already faced, ring hollow when the announcer states that this match will “set the tone for the much anticipated Russia-Germany feud.”

The match lasts only three minutes. Germany prevails.

His teammates look from Gaby, war whooping in the stands, to Illya, who is the one now to drop his eyes to the floor. Their stares are not an accusation, exactly. More like guilt by association.

The Russian weightlifters report a similar showing from Team Germany in their arena, though they fared better than the judokas. Rumors circulate that the Russian Commission has tried and failed to identify a code violation. Team Germany, while obnoxious, are within their rights as spectators.

Team Russia mounts a counter offensive, but there is something off about their cheers when compared to the Germans. Illya, a product of UNCLE, can put his finger directly on the difference. While Russian patriotism cannot be faulted, the Russian style of coaching prioritizes individual achievement over team spirit. He does not share this insight with his coach, who considers Illya’s participation in the program a wasted interlude that served only to create unnecessary complications.

Namely Gaby, who Oleg eyes in the stands with such a calculated force Illya finds himself holding his breath.

* * *

Oleg does not confront Illya about her until the third day of the judo tournament. That morning, Illya is leaving the cafeteria when Irada Nefedyeva storms up to him. She thrusts a sharp finger into his sternum to punctuate each word: " _Handle your woman_." Irada stalks off, leaving Illya as dumbfounded as he is wary.

Upon arriving at the training facility, Illya is ordered to the A/V room. Oleg gestures for Illya to take a seat. “Sygray,” he orders, and the screen mounted on the wall flickers on to reveal the ESPN website. From somewhere in the dim light behind Illya, Assistant Coach Vasilyev clicks play.

Lin introduces Gaby, dressed to the nines in a black crop top and matching silk pants that make her legs go for miles. Off of his question about the Russia-Germany feud, she parrots a few UNCLE lines about the bonding nature of competitive spirit.

“I’m feeling the love. It means so much to me to see Team Germany do well at this Olympics.” And then she adds casually as if the news wouldn’t possibly send a jolt through anyone the way it does to Illya, “Especially since this is going to be my last competition.”

Lin congratulates her on her career but otherwise swoops past it to ask again after the rivalry.

Gaby waxes poetic about her biggest competition and clarifies what has gotten the normally unflappable Irada so upset: “She has a tremendous natural talent — I can say that now, right? Definitively?”

The tittering noise that comes out of her mouth grates on Illya's ears. He didn't know she could even make a noise like that.

“Pauzu,” Oleg orders, and Vasilyev complies. “Pokazat' picturs.”

Gaby appears on the screen again, this time in a flowing white dress and round white sunglasses. She’s on a yacht sipping wine with two people Illya doesn’t recognize, a tall blonde woman and a darker man with a moustache. In the next picture, Gaby’s Uncle Rudi joins them. Illya squints in disbelief as the following picture shows Gaby kissing her uncle on the cheek — despite never having a kind word for the man in the eight years Illya has known her.

Vasilyev clicking through more pictures, Oleg finally speaks directly to Illya. His teeth are clenched around a wad of nicotine gum. " _THRUSH is mounting a smear campaign against all Russian Olympic competitors. It seems the girl is involved in their attacks. She must be monitored_ — "

Illya stops before he shakes his head in confused denial. Oleg is the one to interrupt himself when he realizes that one of the pictures is upside down.

Vasilyev holds up his hands to ward off a comment from Oleg, who has turned in his chair. “Prostite, tovarishch.”

" _She must be monitored_ ,"  Oleg continues. " _You have access to the same places as she does. You_ _know her habits. So you will monitor her_." 

Illya betrays himself when his chin jerks toward Oleg. His only chance of protecting his dignity is predicated on staying as far from Gaby as possible.

" _You will not make contact. You will follow policy. She will break the competitor’s code of conduct to justify THRUSH’s hatred for our athletes. And you will document it_."

And Irada Nefedyeva will win the gold medal so coveted by the Russian Commission. Nowhere in the world is rhythmic gymnastics more revered.

He sets his jaw. There are a dozen things he wants to say to Oleg. Illya only nods, as Oleg knows he will. His coach is already standing up to leave.

Zipping his track suit, Oleg says, " _Nefedyeva told you to handle your woman. You will handle her. But make no mistake, she is your woman no more. As I have always said, the girl is a threat to your career both as a judoka and with the Ministry of Sports_." To Vasilyev, he orders, “Zakonchit' video,” before the two leave Illya to grind his teeth.

On the screen, the next question Lin has for Gaby is about Illya.

“That certainly went viral quickly, didn’t it?” Gaby’s laughter, just as he predicted during the press conference, is high and sharp and tinged with pity. “All I’ll say is that Illya puts a lot of pressure on his...performance.” She’s absolutely composed, except for the wiggling line of her mouth. It’s her ‘Waverly can’t know I’ve found the key to the wine cellar’ gambit.

Lin pounces. “And by that you mean…” He’s gone off script, judging by Gaby’s drawn eyebrows.

Illya is already bracing his hands on his knees.

“Everyone knows that Illya is a special performer. His record speaks for itself.” Annoyance bubbles up in her words. She’s told him in several different fights where he can go stick his record.

Lin is undeterred. “It's just that when you say ‘special,’ it sounds like — ”

Illya is practicing deep breaths. He’s never been accused in any formal capacity, has passed every test. But the cloud of suspicion hangs over him nonetheless.

“I mean, with the doping scandal and Kuryakin’s father’s history — ”

Gaby snaps, “What makes Illya special is Illya.”

The deep ferocity in her voice constricts his chest in a new way. Tenderness. Gratitude. She could destroy him if she really wanted to.

Lin smooths over her moment of pique, continuing, “So you think he’s unbeatable?”

“Everyone has their weakness.” Composed again, Gaby lifts her sweetest-edged smile directly into the camera. “It’s what makes the competition so exciting.”

The interview ends there, freeze framing on the vengeful glint in her eye, and Illya understands Solo’s warning in full. ‘Gaby owns the circus now.’ And what could Illya be in Gaby’s circus but her Russian dancing bear?

Sniff and snarl all he may, he will dance for her whether he means to or not.

Ironic that Oleg with his orders is the one who has locked Illya in a cage for her to do with as she pleases. 


	4. go out on top however you like

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Long update to make up for the time between posting! Credit to thoughtsthatfester for the pun in the chapter title. Her "Going for Gold" AU, which this fic is inspired by, is now complete, so check it out. 
> 
> What you are about to read is incredibly trope-heavy so salt your popcorn, folks. Emotions are running high.

Accepting another champagne flute and fruit skewer from a passing waiter, Gaby appreciates the excuse to rearrange her facial muscles into something other than haughty-yet-intrigued. The past twenty minutes have been nothing but a bore. Everything she needs to know about Alexander Vinciguerra she can tell just by looking — he knows he’s too handsome, too rich, too catered to for anyone to call him out on that absurdity of a moustache.

He’s telling her now about a million dollars he raised in support of better quality drug and genetic testing for cyclists. It was at a dinner hosted by him and his wife, and as soon as the ‘w’-word slips from his lips his hand slips down to cup her ass.

It’s a long and winding road, but ultimately Gaby blames Solo for thrusting her into this twilight zone. She’s comforted by the familiar feeling; it gives her the strength to smile flirtatiously under her lashes at Alexander instead of yanking on his moustache. She uses her Uncle Rudi’s approach to put some distance between them.

Rudi takes her by the elbows, looking at her in a way he must think is fondly paternal. She sees instead the disreputable doctor her absent father cut ties, took a job in America to stop working with. The man her late mother never voiced a word against but in whose presence she never let Gaby out of sight.

“My Gaby,” Rudi says. “The Russians may have brought shame to international athletics, but I’ll forever be grateful they brought you back to me.”

Gaby murmurs an agreement into her champagne flute. Rudi turns his attention to Victoria Vinciguerra, who appears in a swirl of silks to dominate the conversation. Gaby eyes the modelesque fencing champion, her spirits lifting as she hits at last on the perfect comeuppance for Solo.

He’ll try to push the blame back onto her, say he warned her. But Solo was the one to make her and Illya the faces of the Russia-Germany feud. And Illya was the one to antagonize her, then avoid her. All her fireworks aimed at him fizzled into nothing. Otherwise, Gaby had merely been demonstrating fervent and coordinated support for her teammates.

Which had, for some unfathomable reason, been enough to precipitate two phone calls. The first from Rudi, congratulating her on her efforts and asking if she wouldn’t care to meet some like-minded people. The second from Waverly, expressing as deep a disappointment as his mild manners allowed. Gaby — her feelings for Waverly not unlike Annie’s for Daddy Warbucks, had the little orphan instead been a moody teen with abandonment issues — confessed in an instant. He sympathized, having had his own run-ins with Oleg over Illya’s participation in UNCLE. But Waverly surprised her by wondering aloud if she might have a unique opportunity to learn more about the true motivations of the mysterious THRUSH.

So here she is, smiling at her dearest Uncle Rudi. Nodding along with people who think doping is a cheat designed to supplant the rightful supremacy of ‘artistry’ and ‘pedigree’ and other code words. Her hand twitches on her glass every time her phone buzzes in her purse, knowing it’s probably another tweet taking her to task for her passive aggressive comment about Irada Nefedyeva. Or worse, praising her.

Gaby has finished her champagne and her last bit of guava before she finds an opportunity to do what she came here to do.

“You know,” she pipes up, “That sounds a lot like what they taught us in UNCLE.”

Three sets of eyes turn toward her: skepticism, indifference, delight.

“I find that surprising,” Victoria intones. Like Waverly, Victoria is a product of the British aristocracy, though she fences for Italy now.

Her husband shrugs. “He is the son of a count, is he not?”

“Mr. Waverly is the second son of the Earl of Brinscote,” Rudi corrects, adapting some of Victoria’s caution. “But he never returned our calls.”

“Waverly doesn’t like to get into politics. Not publicly.” Gaby wishes she had more champagne so she could take a leisurely sip. She’s waiting for the wheels to stop in her uncle’s mind.

“And if you were to, perhaps, speak with him? Might he be assured of our discretion?”

Gaby hums, indicating it would be no trouble or consequence to her.

“Now that is a good idea,” Victoria purrs, smiling at Gaby in a way that makes her realize she needs Solo on this for more than payback.

At UNCLE something they actually had learned about was the mechanisms beneath the surface of elite athletics, an industry worth billions when considering ad revenues and political clout. She isn’t dealing with the end of the world here, but greed and elitism are not forces to be trifled with.

She sticks around for another half hour to satisfy her paranoia and also to discreetly scope out the guestlist. The crowd skews older but there are a disheartening number of young athletes all the same. A handful she recognizes as former UNCLE ambassadors or applicants, casting Waverly’s interest in a much more urgent light.

Gaby settles in the back of the car her uncle sent for her earlier that evening, the relieved sigh catching in her throat at a glimpse in the rearview mirror. She whips around just in time to see a blond head scrunching inside a hideous two-door Fiat Uno.

When it comes to Illya, Gaby employs Moscow rules.

Once — his hiding in the bushes like a teenager with a hard-on — could be an accident.

Twice could be a coincidence, since there were few hotels his mother would be staying at besides the grand Sofitel Rio de Janeiro Copacabana.

But three times?

When she spots Illya again at sunset, taking pictures of the beach near where she’s having dinner with teammates, anger prickles along her skin from the nape of her neck to the backs of her knees.

Legs pale against white sands, Illya’s calves flex with each overtly casual step. He’s wearing boat shoes and belted chino shorts. His button-down, rolled up at the sleeves, is ironed and tucked. He looks like he walked off the cover of a fashion magazine called _Preppy Sex Appeal_ , tagline: ‘You’ll Hate Yourself but Damn.’ Gaby skewers a piece of fish to give herself something to do besides contemplate the breadth of his shoulders. He’s not fooling her. It’s the look a sentient robot might choose were it attempting to pass among human peoples.

He’s pretending he’s oblivious to her, the way he’s been pretending to be oblivious to her for three entire days. She props her elbow on the glass table and sticks up her middle finger to hold there. She’ll look great in corner frame.

Moscow rules. Three times is enemy action, and Gaby is surrounded on all sides.

* * *

Illya has made himself scarce, but the question of what the hell does he think he’s doing follows Gaby from dinner to her new spot, Céu da Praia. Three levels of flashing lights and infectious rhythms, where an even mix of tourists and locals dance at, on, and around the tables, all with an unbeatable view of the ocean. She meets up with assorted Team Germany athletes, none of whom are likely to call her grandma. Developing real friendships with women her own age is something Gaby is looking forward to in her post-gymnastics life. For now, she doesn’t feel a couple of nights is quite the point at which it is acceptable to confide that her ex has taken up stalking and she suspects not for the usual reasons.

She gets no intel from Solo, who finally texts her back that Illya hasn’t said word one to him since what he’s calling The Frozen Drink Affair. He agrees to meet her tomorrow morning, location TBD, and extends an invitation to Usain Bolt’s VIP lounge. She declines. Solo, for all his sex positivity, is an unrepentant cockblock where she’s concerned. Gaby needs enablers.

This crew of Team Germany women can be counted on to lead by example. Collectively, they’re striving to go Around the World in Sixteen Days — a lay for every timezone in both hemispheres. It hasn’t gone unnoticed that Gaby, thus far, has not pulled her weight. Single for the first time at the largest free-for-all in the wide world of sports and she hasn’t worked up the enthusiasm for more than dry humping on the dance floor. Emphasis on the dry.

In an effort to rectify this, Gaby’s bonded with a shot-putter named Margrit over their shared ability to put away large quantities of alcohol. They’re neck and neck in a race to see who can down the most cocktails before the eleven-thirty drinking curfew kicks in. Countdown at one second to go, Gaby swallows the last of her Brazilian Breakfast. She finishes off Margrit’s drink for good measure, earning her ripples of feigned shock. Unlike the track coaches, Gaby’s coach isn’t trigger-happy when it comes to reporting policy infractions to the German Olympics Committee. Over the years, she’s received two or three warnings but has never had to pay a fine or look down the barrel of a competition ban.

No one knows what the penalty will be for breaking the anti-fraternization policy, which only fuels interest in the possibility — for everyone except Gaby. Whenever the conversation veers to the relative attractiveness of this or that Russian athlete, as it does when a rowdy bunch take over a nearby table, she redoubles her efforts on Tinder.

Mostly it’s been over-flexed man-children sending her pictures of pecs and abs, eager for validation. She has seen so many Olympic penises of varying shapes and sizes she is considering doing a calendar. A Serbian tennis pro responds to her winky face with a filter-heavy shot that throws his deep v into sharp relief. From between his cupped fingers, the head of his dick peeks out like a groundhog. Definitely Mr. February. Gaby types, ‘Looks like six more weeks of winter,’ erases that, then sends another winky face. Tennis pro sends one back. Scintillating.

Really, Gaby can only blame herself. This is night four, she’s frustrated, her ex is acting erratic, and sustained drinking is not an option. The time to lower her standards is now. They’re handing out free lube with the condoms; she can make it work. _"I swear"_ , she vows, raising her voice to be heard over the music. _"The next guy who even looks at me, I’m jumping on his — "_

A nudge to the ribs gains her attention. Margrit indicates with an eyebrow that Gaby should turn to the left.

Illya, from a seat at the corner of the Team Russia table, is looking straight at her.

The alcohol hits Gaby all at once, spreading a flush from her core through her limbs. She can count on one hand the number of times Illya has shown up at a club for her. Vindication sweeps the flush up her neck as it occurs to her what he has unknowingly been watching her do.

For his part, Illya pretends to be invested in the conversation at his table he’ll have no interest in, the drink in his hand she knows is water. He looks up every now and again to meet her narrowed eyes. The lack of pretense is jarring.

Her half-yell is not quite lost to the music: _"What the hell does he think he’s doing?"_

 _"Channeling sad Drake,"_ Margrit suggests. In solidarity, she joins forces to help Gaby stare him down.

Illya looks away sharply. Plays with his watch. Rubs the back of his neck. He’s never been good at female attention. She cracks a smile, one full of spite. This is no lovelorn schtick. The timing of his sudden interest reeks of conspiracy. His eyes on her again, she tips a discarded drink to her lips. Daring him to document her infraction. Illya crosses his arms over his chest and leans back, face reconfiguring into a mask of indifference.

Two dozen ways to rain down fireworks light up Gaby’s brain in shades of red. Indecision paralyzes her long enough for a terrifically bad idea to sidle up into her personal space. Ask in her ear, _"Want me to beat him up for you?"_

Blond hair, blue eyes, but thick-muscled and stocky where Illya is toned and tall. Bernd Whatever-His-Last-Name-Is. Team Germany’s heavyweight judoka contender. The same contender Illya dismissed out of hand during his Opening Ceremony remarks.

Eyes on Illya’s immobile fingers, pale beneath the strobe lights, Gaby leans into Bernd. _"What makes you so cocky?"_

"'Everyone has their weakness,'" Bernd quotes. For the second time that very night, a self-satisfied prick palms her ass.

Illya’s finger ticks once.

Gaby yanks Bernd in and fakes it like a pro.

Their kissing is sloppy. And only in a crowd like this could their grinding and fondling be considered dancing. Gaby comes up for air as soon as she can, certain that Illya will have run off even faster than he did the other night. He’s in his seat that and every subsequent time she glances over. Stock-still except for the rhythmic tap of his finger on his bicep. Soon, Gaby finds she can’t look away, even as Bernd tips her neck to suck along her skin. Her pulse elevates in time to that tap.

 _"Christ, you’re wet — "_ Bernd’s words assault her eardrum, a second’s warning before he tries to shove two fingers inside of her. Gaby has already elbowed him in the kidney when a resounding crash sends him springing back from her.

Illya, flipped table and broken glass a foot to his left, locks eyes with Bernd. His mask has hardened into a brittle calm. Bernd gives ground, pushing his way further into the club where the commotion hasn’t registered. Slipping his hands into his pockets, Illya casts his eyes toward every gaping face in the vicinity but hers before turning his back to leave.

The gapes fall on her. She tries to find Margrit, any friendly face. There’s only Team Russia’s wordless accusation. Like she’s set off a grenade.

Gaby takes an Uber back to the Village alone. And crawls into her poor excuse for a bed alone. She pulls the blankets up over her head to block the sobering shame of it all. Clenches her thighs together to block the excitement of what she can make him do.

* * *

The following morning, Gaby meets up with Solo at an ungodly hour so they can both make it to training on time. He’s given her directions to a luxury cabana in a secluded spot up the beach from the Village, which he has apparently secured by way of a hotel manager. Gaby notes the upside down name tag in passing. The taller woman is all but floating, the confident swing in her step classic Solo. Gaby is not all that surprised Mark Lin wasn’t his partner for the evening. On occasion, Solo does like to play the long game.

Solo, lounging in a robe and probably nothing else, beckons Gaby over to kiss his cheek. He offers up the rest of his lavish breakfast in exchange. Solo has long doted on Gaby like a beloved younger sister, a treatment her pride would have compelled her to rectify had she not been deep in the throes of hate at first sight with a condescending Russian. By now she’s well past caring, family being worth far more to her than an expert lay. She takes a seat on an ottoman, breakfast platter on her knees.

“So.” Arranging his folded hands over the plush fabric of the robe, Solo raises his eyebrows at her. “You have a favor you would like to call in?”

“Please.” Gaby removes the large, dark sunglasses covering her hangover and residual embarrassment from the night before. There’s a real chance Solo hasn’t heard, so she’s going to act as if. “You owe me.”

Solo waves that away. “Fine, fine. I’ll redouble my efforts to talk some sense into Peril.”

“‘The Red Peril,’” Gaby mimics, “has taken up surveillance on me.”

Giving that turn of events its due consideration, Solo responds, “Can you even imagine a man that easy to spot as a spy?”

“He’d train twenty hours a day and be the best,” Gaby gripes.

“Because he’s ‘special’?” Solo puts in, pretending to rest his eyes to avoid her glare. “That was quite a tense interview. I’ll admit, I was worried you’d take it too far.”

She pelts him with a hunk of melon.

Unflinching, Solo continues, “I wonder, could your comments have anything to do with your new friends?"

It’s much easier for her to have Solo already gotten himself onto her page, but, honestly, it’s infuriating. Where does he find the time?

“That’s the part where you pay me back. Victoria Vinciguerra — ”

Solo makes a noise in his throat. “Hellcat, or so I’ve heard.” He doesn’t sound entirely turned off by that.

“Here’s your opportunity to find out. My uncle is more forthcoming when she’s otherwise occupied.”

“Oh, I see. I’m to be a — a what do you call it? — a honey pot.” An amused smile lights his face. “What’s my cover, Agent Teller?”

“You’re Napoleon Solo. You don’t need a cover to make advances towards anyone.”

Solo sighs. “As intriguing as all this sounds, Sanders has been on my case already and I don’t even dive until the 19th.”

That reminds her. “I think I can make only one of your dives. I’m on all day the 19th and 20th.”

“I’ll send a selfie from the platform. Do you think they’d disqualify me or add points for style?” He asks that like he’s been pondering it with seriousness. “Anyway, I’ll be at your final performance, of course.” He raises a mimosa in her honor. “It won’t be the same without you.”

Gaby sponges up honey with bread, but she doesn’t have much of an appetite this morning.

In a softer tone, Solo says, “Why don’t we call this whole thing a wash, hm? We’ll find a nude beach and tease Peril until his ears burn off.”

An appealing proposition, one better suited to the three of them as they were four years ago.

“Come now,” she chides, trying to sound game. “Don’t tell me your idea of fun is so limited. My uncle is up to no good, and it would be a disservice to our UNCLE not to do something about it. Beijing wasn’t that long ago. We took down a gambling ring.” Essentially on accident, Solo’s extracurricular activities being what they are. But still.

“‘We.’ There was a third party involved if you'll remember."

She remembers. Moving them out of the dangerous territory of nostalgia, she inquires, “How is the prop betting this year?”

“Odds for someone breaking the Russia-Germany sex ban are so high it’s not worth it. You and Illya, now that’s a different story. It's even money that you get violent or you get intimate. And if you do both by Closing Ceremony some stand to win a hefty pot."

Gaby turns the full force of her disgust at her own behavior and Illya’s on Solo. “I’d put my money on violence."

“No chance at all for slap-kiss?” he wheedles.

Gaby skips over the obvious barrier of their breakup to argue, “You saw him. He’s back to being that verdammte Maschine.”

“You love machines.”

“I don’t want to fuck my cars, Solo.”

He gives her a look like she’s protesting too much but offers no counter.

“And, besides, I could get in a lot of trouble if I were caught — a more likely outcome because of your meddling. Good plan.” Her cheeks warm. She is protesting too much.

“I half-thought the ban was an aesthetic choice to make the inevitable all the more entertaining,” Solo confesses. “They can't seriously punish you for getting back together with your fiancé.”

Gaby thinks again to the ring burning a hole in her duffle bag. “Not my fiancé.” Even if there were a chance for ‘slap-kiss,’ it wouldn’t change that.

Continuing his air of confession, Solo informs her, “Lin is getting restless. It's all been setup so far. He needs the, ah, plot to thicken. He’s being very insistent."

"The man who published an ode to yours, the body of Poseidon, is immune to your charms?” Gaby is at once impressed and wary. “Sounds like a match. Have you considered developing an unhealthy attachment to arranging your own wedding?"

Solo shudders and Gaby rolls her eyes. He grew up cradled in the warm glow of a stable, working-class parental unit, so he’s comforted by domesticity but feels no longing himself to partake in it. Not like her and Illya, who have been wealth-adjacent most of their lives with all the attendant dysfunctions.

Heaving a sigh, Gaby puts the platter aside so she can pace along the square edge of the cabana.

“That stress can’t be good for your flexibility,” Solo observes, an unknowing echo of her coach. “The way I see it, you have three options, Gabs.”

“Enlighten me.”

“Option A: turn Peril into the Brazilian authorities on stalking charges. After he’s convicted, you’ll come to his cell dressed like a black widow to monologue about the many ways he has wronged you.”

That uncomplimentary suggestion gets an aggravated side-eye.

“Option B: deeply fuck with him. Make him watch you watch paint dry, then take on an entire rugby sevens squad. Country of your choosing, though I recommend New Zealand.”

Groaning, Gaby rubs her palms against her eyelids. Solo, if he’s not playing the knowledge of her disastrous turn at Option B close to his chest, will find out soon enough. And Lin will want a word about not getting an exclusive.

“Okay,” Solo says. “So how about Option C: remember that you are both adults who have spent significant portions of your lives, I don’t know, spooning and arguing over who loves each other more.” He pulls a face. “And for the love of God just talk to the man.”

“Wow, it’s like you were right there in our bed with us.” Her sarcasm doesn’t even earn her a waggle of Solo’s eyebrows.

He’s serious for once. Unamused. “You may feel compelled to drive Illya away at this moment, but consider just how far and for how long.”

Gaby slips her sunglasses back on, not feeling like sharing how hard the warning hits her. “I will choose Option C,” she concedes primly, “If you help me with THRUSH.”

“Thank God,” Solo pronounces by way of acquiescence. “Really, Gabs, you’re much better suited to playing mother than I am.”

“I should have let the two of you kill each other years ago,” she grouses.

Her muscles remain clenched tight. Gaby has got to relax or the Russians won’t need Illya spying on her to take her gold. Solo, for once, must not be operating with all the available information if he thinks a talk is going to smooth things over between them. What he’s right about is that Gaby’s been operating on a short timespan and an even shorter fuse. There really is only one method sure to work out that tension.  

* * *

Gaby spends the day stretching, tossing, jumping, icing, and planning.

What she loves most about rhythmic gymnastics is that it’s deliberate choice meets constant motion. Each competition cycle, she develops four routines with four apparatuses and commits them to muscle memory. Then she builds and tweaks and awes. Each one of her routines is diverse in its intricacies but share one common through line. For her final cycle she’s titled it “Break Free.” Free of expectations, free of self-imposed limitations. The judges love her because she’s as unpredictable as she is purposeful.

With much the same attitude, Gaby approaches the hash her final Olympics has turned into. Her goal of leaving Rio poised to start a brand new life has developed four prerequisites: win gold, show up the Russians, expose THRUSH, and come to terms with Illya. Seventy-thirty chance for better or worse. Worth the risk, the way she’s feeling.

The through line she’s calling “The Seduction of Illya Nikolayevich Kuryakin.”

It hits every prereq. Breaking up long-distance has left them without the closure they need. Oleg will be beside himself with infuriated hubris. She can pretend to pass on useful intel to her uncle, securing his trust. Gaby will complain about Illya’s dedication to laborious training in every area save this one — she has yet to meet the man who can relax her more thoroughly. It’s a brilliantly elegant solution to all of her problems.

What she’ll be judged on, like any of her rhythmic performances, will be execution and composition, the latter a combination of difficulty and artistry. She’ll earn her points for difficulty. The sex ban, plus Illya’s strategy of fighting frustrated, plus logistics, plus watchful eyes all add up. The artistry will come in the persuasion. Illya’s broken rules for her before but inspiring him to do so requires extraordinary finesse. Deductions in her execution score will come if she pisses off Twitter or the German Olympics Committee.

Given that, her first move is to take a seat across from her coach at the end of the day and ask her, point blank, what will happen if she breaks the ban.

Coach Horn places her elbows on her desk, long, care-worn fingers tucked together. She’s never looked more unimpressed. " _The whole business with Russia is idiotic. What do I care about nationality when my fifteen-year-old gymnasts are_   _sexting_   _men pushing thirty? I rely on my older gymnasts to provide a good example_."

Gaby squirms in her chair like she’s fifteen herself. Coach Horn went to the same school of equivocal guilt trips that Waverly graduated from.

Horn leans forward. " _Gaby, your legacy ends at this Olympics. You’ll never forgive yourself if you do not get focused. If you promise me focus_ — " her lips twitch, and she switches to English for the sake of the pun — “go out on top however you like.”

No one does motivational speeches quite like Coach Horn.

The matter of Option C remains. Rolling out her sore muscles, Gaby finds a secluded bench outside the training facility.

Her finger hovers over the contact Solo shared with her. How many times had she called Illya only to be sent to voicemail because he was training at odd hours? But, then, how many times had he called her after she deleted him from her phone, not-so-unknown number flashing across her screen?

If it is a matter of pride, neither of them has much to speak of. So what the hell.

Illya picks up on the last ring. “Gaby.” He is breathless and strangely muffled. Probably at the arena, huddled somewhere far away from attentive ears.

“Relax,” she tells him. The anxious grip her fingers have on her phone is nowhere in her voice. “Why should a call count as fraternizing if stalking doesn’t?”

His breaths slow in the long pause. “You are okay?”

Embarrassment raises her hackles. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“You were angry with me. That man took advantage.”

The strength of his conviction is enough to double her over, her forehead resting against her knee. She’s supposed to have the moral high ground here. “They aren’t punishing you for the table?”

“Table was not damaged. Glasses I pay for.”

Gaby hums. She’s not in the habit of apologizing for Illya’s temper. But she does say, “It was a stupid thing to do.”

Illya must understand she’s speaking for herself as well, because he concedes, “I should have told you. The Russian Committee, after what you said about Irada Nefedyeva — they know you have been seeing your uncle. It was not my choice. This stalking.” There’s actual inflection in his admission.

Raising her chin against it, Gaby almost crows, “So the Russian Olympic Committee has asked one of its athletes to spy for them. How retro. Next they’ll be building a wall.”

“THRUSH is a dangerous organization. Commission assumes the worst.” Nothing personal, his tone implies.

“And what do you assume?”

“I assume nothing.” He says it the same as he used to say, ‘I did not say that.’ Defensive, warding off her attack. “I think you might have reason?” He waits in vain for her to meet the small hope in his voice. Meanwhile, Solo hadn’t even had to ask. The faith Illya has in her is truly inspiring.

Arschloch, she thinks, and has to bite her tongue.

Impatience creeps into Illya’s voice: “As I said. Committee is concerned. They ask me to relieve their concern.” Again he concedes, “I should have told you. Calling seemed such a difficult thing to do after so much time. But you have managed it.” There’s warmth there, a little humility. “I am sorry.”

So he’s been human this whole time. It jolts her to realize how much worse that feels.

“Sorry for what? Following me? Or joining Oleg’s mission to get me disqualified? The Ministry of Sports will be so grateful.”

“That is not — ” Illya starts to counter. Corrects himself. “It doesn't matter. You will not do anything to be disqualified. Gaby, I know that.”

“And if I do?”

He’s sure to recognize this gambit of hers. The unwinnable hypothetical, able to turn him stubborn and angry in an instant. In every argument, he thinks he’s the rational one.

“Then it would be my duty to report you.”

“Of course.” She’s won her point but lost again, just like old times. It should pain her less now that she’s her own woman again. The wound should have blistered over.

“Gaby.” He sounds clueless. Exasperated. “Tell me your reason.” Against her silence, his swallow is audible. “What will you do?” The question is pitched low, demanding but shot through with nerves and something else that feels, in her gut, like anticipation.

“I couldn’t sleep last night.” She’s showing her hand a little early, but she makes the bet. “I’d close my eyes, and I’d just see you. Watching me.”

No response. Doesn’t matter. Gaby knows what her voice can do to him.

“I wanted it to be you touching me.”

The breath Illya releases crackles in her ear.

“How did you sleep?”

“Gaby...”

That rumble loosens something inside her. “Relax,” she tells him again. “We play games for a living, Illya. Games are supposed to be fun. So take your pictures and count on hearing from me soon.”

She disconnects the call.

To Solo, Gaby texts, ‘Option D: we win a lot of money. Call your linemaker and put it all on slap-kiss.’ She stretches out on the bench. Feeling better already.


	5. she needs you to prove it to her

****Russia and Germany are neck and neck in the standings for the ‘B-Mat Rivalry,’ a fact that greets Illya over the loudspeaker as he re-enters Carioca Arena 2 for the final competition of the day.

He’s taken a walk around the stadium to clear his head from this latest line of attack. Gaby’s voice — ‘I wanted it to be you’ — still echoes in the hollow space inside his chest, but it’s faint beneath his certainty that she’s out for revenge. There is nothing so righteous as Gaby when she thinks she’s been wronged. His anger is a flash point; hers is a boil, the number one killer of unsuspecting frogs in saucepans. He’s been the frog before. This time he might even deserve it.

Deep jeers from the crowd are audible before Illya clears security to walk onto the floor. It’s Russia v. Brazil for the men’s -81k gold medal match, and the Team Germany boosters have joined forces with the raucous home crowd to root against Russia. The stands and the press box are almost filled. Lin leans off the side to snap a photo and Illya does his best not to betray any annoyance.

He comes to stand next to Coach Oleg, posture at its most rigid. His mentor’s habitual scowl raises toward the stands, and Illya knows without seeing that Gaby has arrived.

From the corner of his mouth, Oleg says, “ _On the day you fight, I will not see her here_.”

Illya schools his response into nothing more but a tight nod. How he is supposed to accomplish that, short of chloroforming Gaby and locking her in a supply closet, he knows better than to ask.

He expected to be dropped from the ridiculous task of monitoring Gaby this morning. But Oleg was not upset Gaby had made Illya so quickly. Quite the opposite. Viewing the photographs, Oleg chuckled at Gaby’s obscene gestures. Told him he was very good at making the little German angry. Illya surmised then that was the real reason he was given the task. To inspire her to make scenes. That he had made one himself earned him the unspoken threat of an official reprimand on his record if he doesn’t comply. He is to interfere now, if necessary.

He risks a glance. She doesn’t lead the chants today. She’s holding an end of a large German flag, the only still figure amid the jostling, ugly enthusiasm of her teammates. For someone so proud of playing games for a living, she doesn’t look like she’s having much fun anymore. Vindication does not come, only concern. Turning her back on UNCLE, entertaining THRUSH — if Gaby won’t tell him what she’s up to, at least he has Oleg’s orders as an excuse to find out for himself.

The gold medal contest is well-suited. Kalmurzaev doesn’t seem to even hear the crowd, focusing only on the telltale movements beneath his opponent’s flashy strikes. In the end, discipline is what wins Kalmurzaev the gold. He faces the unsportsmanlike booing of the crowd with equanimity. It is an excellent lesson Illya has the best intentions of emulating. He intends to keep his distance.

He holds on to that intention for roughly twenty minutes, right up until he spots Gaby being pulled by the elbow from the crowd filing out of the arena. It’s Bernd Dimler, and Gaby looks about as pleased to see him as Illya is.

Hands slipped into his pockets, Illya tries for casual as he approaches the alcove where Bernd and Gaby are talking.

 _'It worked, didn’t it?'_  Dimler is pressing, back to Illya. " _Guy went berserk. Look, I’m sorry I took it too far. Let’s just fake it and really throw him off his game_."

Gaby’s shaking head stops as Illya freezes on the edge of her peripheral. He is heedless of the people forced to divert around. It hadn’t occurred to him, for some reason, that last night could have been staged.

" _Come on_." Hearing the plea in his voice, Illya realizes Dimler might be even younger than Gaby." _What happened to your patriotism_?" He raises his fist. “Wir sind das Volk.”

All that righteous indignation, accusing him of trying to get her disqualified. Was it that much different when she’s been after his medal from the start?

Suddenly, Gaby’s eyes lock onto his. Something of his bitterness must show on his face because she mirrors it. _"Bernd, have we discussed this?'_ Gaby demands. She cuts through Dimler’s confusion to clarify, _'Did we plot together? Did I make you any promises?"_

Dimler shakes his head. Then turns as soon as he realizes that Gaby’s smirk is pointed over his shoulder. He starts when he sees Illya. Young or not, Dimler must have years of entitlement informing his actions. He grabs Gaby around the waist, ignores her affronted huff, and says, “Can we help you?”

Illya looks from Gaby’s rolling eyes to Dimler’s meaty fingers. " _You can leave_." He shoots for remote but lands more on petulant. So he turns a glare on him to recover authority.

Before Dimler can protest, Gaby echoes, _" _You can leave_."_

" _He’s the one who isn’t supposed to be_ — "

Three steps forward is all it takes to crowd Dimler away from Gaby.

Even backing down, Dimler has to sneer, “We’ll settle this on the mats.” The veins in his thick arms are pulsing. He looks like the poster boy for steroid use, and yet Illya is the one under constant scrutiny.

“I will settle you, yes.”

Gaby grabs his wrist with both hands and earns his full attention for the touch.

They are communicating silently again. Dimler is gone. The crowd behind him falls away. He is calmed, but she isn’t. She’s angry and trying to mask it with her sharpest smile. It cuts into him. He’s hurt her just now. The same way he hurt her over the phone. By thinking the worst of her. Head lowered in apology, Illya leans in toward the softening line of her mouth.

The bark of his name carries from the second level, forcing him to jerk back so he can identify where it came from. Coach Oleg stares him down from on high. An incline of Oleg’s chin sends Illya looking around to where Lin waves at him once more. Gaby twirls her fingers back, and Lin hoists his camera in thanks.

Illya snaps back to Gaby. Her smile has turned impenetrable, her actions unknowable. He doesn’t know what she’s planned or why. Innocent or guilty, she’s setting him up either way.

“Kuryakin.” The command infused in his name is all the stronger for having said it twice.

“Run along, boy,” Gaby insists, shooing him like an errant puppy. “We will settle this on the mats.” Dimler’s promise is suggestive on her rolling tongue.

He goes, looking back only when he’s striding up the stairs. Her chin is tilted past him, to Oleg, who turns his back on her. The laughter on her face is fierce, solicitous of a fight.

* * *

Illya knows when he’s being tested. At times, he feels that is what his life has been — a series of tests. Assessments, evaluations, qualifications.

He does not run, as he does now, treadmill shaking beneath his pounding feet, without measuring time, distance, and stamina. He enjoys running when he is outdoors. There are views and fresh breezes and paths he can set and alter as he pleases. He has been told to run in the training facility so that Vasilyev can write critiques and demand improvements. The illusion of choice is gone. Illya runs every day because years ago Coach Oleg told him he must run. Today he runs on a treadmill because Gaby is a test he persists in failing.

At the arena, Oleg had said little, only reminded him — Gaby is not his woman anymore.

Sweat is dripping into Illya’s eyes when Vasilyev orders him off the treadmill and into the weight room. The regimen Oleg has mandated would make a Special Forces drill sergeant balk. Illya is being punished. Unofficially. A mercy even to his aching lungs.

Vasilyev leaves Yuri, Illya’s roommate, to spot him. And, he suspects, inform on him. Oleg knew every detail of what had happened at the club before Illya had even a chance to confess. He has to wonder if Yuri ever questions their coach’s methods or if that is his own peculiar weakness. Illya would not be the athlete he is, would not have the career track he does without Oleg’s methods. He forgets that too often.

Illya is most of the way through his second set when feminine laughter penetrates his concentration. He loses count of his breaths between presses, snatches of conversation in German pulling him from mindlessness. The judokas share this facility with the gymnasts, among others. Staying out of Gaby’s way hasn’t been a problem since Illya prefers to workout on his own in the early morning or late at night and doesn’t mind trading rooms with the best machines for quiet. He’s more easily distracted than he would care to admit. A peel of laughter, low and rasping, puts a hitch in his last three reps. He sits up to douse his face and neck with a cool, damp towel. Gaby, he is certain, is laughing at him.

Not exactly at this moment. He darts glances as he changes machines and sees her standing beside a bar and a teammate swinging by her knees. Gaby’s fingers are curled, poised to tickle the younger girl’s feet. She’s grinning as hard as Gaby is through her squeals. She could fall and break her neck. The threat of real danger is Gaby’s favorite kind of tease.

Seated on a calf machine, Illya makes a vain attempt to stop listening for her laughter. That cackle of hers, uncontrolled delight. He’s been hearing it all evening. She told him to relax and left him to twist himself into knots. Because games are fun.

She’s playing one now, crossing the room in a diagonal path that cuts into his sightline. Her lithely muscled arms stretch above her head, pulling spandex taunt against firm cheeks and golden skin. Gaby folds at the waist to pick up a set of weights. He has her blessing, Illya reminds himself, to stare. Whatever her intentions, she’s set herself up opposite the wall-length mirror to do her lunges in such a way that he can’t miss the lean line of her body sliding up and down in perfect form.

Gaby in motion has been Illya’s downfall from the start. She showed him size is no indicator of strength or power. When they ran together, he fell behind. He endured the death glares she shot over her shoulder, so sure that he was patronizing her. Endured Solo’s endless crowing when he took the lead. The minutes stolen from his time. All for the pleasure of watching her move.

Prodded by Yuri, Illya gets up to stretch his legs. He gulps down a bottle of water, pretending not to know that he’s pacing a loop that takes him closer to Gaby with each pass. He watches the reflection of her side-eyed smile grow until she’s staring right at him the next time he’s in her sights.

Illya slows, clenching the sides of the towel around his neck. The heat in her eyes sparks hope. Maybe she is laughing at him. Teasing him. But Gaby — despite everything stacked against them, she could mean it, too. In the mirror, their reflections seem to touch. He sees her, bright-eyed and glowing with exercise. He sees himself, white-knuckled and stone-faced. One thought softens his whole demeanor: could it be this easy to have her back? Her bold expression falters.

Illya feels himself, sees himself stiffen. Gaby turns around to face him. He takes a step away.

She means it. But not like he does.

Yuri calls, and Illya returns to throw himself full-force into finishing the regimen.

He exhausts himself to the point where all he can do is shower, make it to the cafeteria, eat two full courses, and drag himself into that narrow, unforgiving bed.

The buzzing of his phone against the thin wood of the nightstand rouses him late into the night. He’s on his stomach, limbs falling off the sides. Lifting his head, he sees ‘Золотце’ flash onto the screen. His golden girl.

He could touch her again. On her terms. Better or worse than nothing? He could take the risk. All he has to do is reach out.

The buzzing stops. He lies awake, keyed up with exhaustion. She doesn’t call again.

Illya knows when he’s being tested. When he’s failing.

* * *

Across from where Illya waits in the lobby of the Sofitel Rio de Janeiro Copacabana, two men, mid-thirties, stand sentry over a set of closed doors. They are wearing suits not hotel uniforms and checking IDs with a scrutiny more suited to the Presidential Security Service. THRUSH is much more dangerous than a propaganda vehicle. He is becoming sure of that even if Oleg was not so convinced by his description of the previous party, insisting instead that Illya’s concern is Gaby only. At the moment, Gaby is in training. He’s off duty, so to speak. Illya snaps discreet pictures with his phone, hoping to catch a judge or two demonstrating bias.

Pretending to be engrossed in typing out a text message, Illya meanders toward a long angle that will allow him a view inside the conference room. The doors open for a smartly dressed couple, and he looks up in time to catch a glimpse of Gaby’s uncle on stage. He’s holding up something Illya can’t quite make out between his thumb and forefinger for applause.

Movement catches the corner of his eye. He turns his gaze back down to his phone. The polished shoes of the broader guard take a deliberate step toward him. Govno —

“Illyusha, vot vy gde!” The authoritative sound of his mother’s voice carries through the lobby.

Turning, he finds her holding out her arms, phone in one jewel-ladened hand. Illya walks over to hug his mother, careful not to muss her newest couture derby hat, Stephen Jones Millinery if he isn’t mistaken. When she found time to go to London since he last saw her in St. Petersburg he doesn’t know. Offering his compliments and his arm, he escorts his mother toward the hotel’s outdoor dining area. He glances back to find that the security guard has forgotten his suspicion. Illya beams at his mother. Always his saving grace.

He settles her in a beach-facing chair and orders her the finest wine and fish on the menu. She lets him ask after her flight — turbulant — the comfort of her room — she has two, and she expects him to stay in his at least one night — and her plans for sightseeing — here and there — before she removes her satin gloves and her sunglasses to begin her own line of questioning.

 _"I have been hearing nonsense_."

“Mamen’ka,” he starts in a placating tone. A toss of her head, kept as honey blonde as the day she married his father, stops him. Illya decides he will pour himself some wine after all. He relates the most dignified version of the truth he can manage.

She tuts through his story but waits until he is finished before offering her conclusion. " _This THRUSH may well be the bigger danger, but you will not be able to use it to distract them from your Gaby."_  As is her way, his mother reveals what she knows like it isn’t a disastrous scandal waiting to happen: _"Irada Nefedyeva is the mistress of the Minister of Sports_." Irada, seventeen, comes from a religious household. The married Minister has two daughters older than she is.

Illya bites back a curse, arms crossing over his chest as the waiter sets down his plate. He prods at his meal. He doesn’t want to think about how his mother must have come by that information. Nor does he want to consider the obvious favor Oleg would be doing the Minister were there evidence for Illya to find disqualifying Gaby. Her cynicism toward his Ministry is proving prescient.

" _My sweet boy_ ,"  his mother says fondly, able to read his blank face. " _Still so shocked by corruption_." She holds up her wineglass for replenishment. " _I fear I allowed you to learn the wrong lesson from what those bastards did to your father_."

Illya’s grip on the wine bottle tightens, glass clanks on glass.

His mother reaches out to ease the involuntary movement of his wrist, her lined fingers closing around the antique watch passed down to him through his father. With a squeeze, she drops his wrist and the subject.

She says, " _You asked about my travel plans. After you win your medal, I will join my dear friend Ambassador Baena-García for a few days in the countryside_."

He has never heard of this dear friend. His mother knows that, knows he’ll nod along anyway.

" _I will return for the rhythmic gymnastics final, of course_. His mother sighs. _How I longed to be one of them in my youth. Gangly, uncoordinated thing that I was_."

" _You have always been beautiful_ ," Illya supplies, so his mother will scoff and smile.

" _Gaby is such a dynamic performer. Though I have told her she relies too much on her pop music. Irada is technically perfect, but Gaby could really bring the classics to life. Don’t you think?_ " Off his noncommittal noise, she presses, " _I will tell her again. You bring her tomorrow._ "

“Nevozmozhno,” he mutters, taking a large bite of rice he does not want.

His mother waves that off. _"Oh, yes. The policy. You arrange something for the two of us, then_."

" _Her Russian is no doubt rusty_ ," he responds stiffly.

“So I say in English,” his mother replies. " _Really, Illyusha, how many years ago did she begin lessons? I must be able to communicate with my daughter-in-law_."

“Mamen’ka.” A child’s plea this time. He scowls into his plate. _"_ _Gaby is retiring. She wants a different_ _life_." Reaching for his wineglass, he admits, " _She has wanted that for a long time_."

" _This life is difficult on relationships_ ," his mother says with gentle empathy. Then, more firmly, " _But she is still your woman. She needs you to prove it to her. That is all._ "

Illya inclines his head and the movement appeases her, though he is not reassured by her confidence. He knows that his mother and Gaby are very different women.

Something over his shoulder alights his mother’s face. She holds out her hand, beckoning in what turns out to be Waverly. He skims a kiss across her knuckles.

Standing in greeting, Illya shakes Waverly’s hand.

“Grand to see you, Kuryakin. I’m looking forward to your competition.” Waverly reaches up to pat his back and ushers him back into his seat before turning his attention again to his mother. " _Shura, you’re a vision_ ," he says, Russian flawless as ever. " _I knew when I saw that hat it would suit no one better than you_."

Illya doesn’t try to hide the roll of his eyes at his mother’s pleased modeling. Where she is concerned, Waverly is worse than Solo.

" _Alex, you must join us_ ," she says, craning her neck for their waiter.

" _Can’t, I’m afraid. Our Gaby has gone to the trouble of securing me a party invitation_." The paper he draws from his suit jacket is a lighter shade of silver than the invitations the security detail were checking. Inner and outer circles, Illya assumes.

He is no less offended. “You approve of Gaby involving herself with her uncle?”

Smile lines tighten beneath Waverly’s sunglasses. “Family is so very important, wouldn’t you agree?” Waverly finishes his flirting to return to his THRUSH party.

Illya’s curt goodbye is worth the admonishment of rudeness from his mother.

When he leaves her for the afternoon after lunch and sorbet, Illya takes the long way around past the tented area on the beach. Through a gap, he spots Waverly talking to the moustached man from the boat. The intricately coifed blonde woman is not far, walking toward the water with a loose-limbed man Illya recognizes even from the back.

Illya retreats to the parking lot. Either the sum of his meaningful social circle has been harboring tendencies he can only describe as neo-Nazi-esque, or the involvement of both Waverly and Solo confirms that Gaby does, in fact, have ulterior motives for THRUSH.

Somehow, the confirmation only leaves Illya with an even stronger sense that he and she are marooned on opposing sides.

* * *

That evening, a mere two days until his Olympic competition, where does the top-ranked heavyweight judoka in the world find himself? Not at the arena with his teammates. Not at the training facility honing his strength. Not in the A/V room dissecting footage of his opponents.

No, Illya finds himself crammed into a toy car headed to the most congested, chicest part of Rio. Finds himself dodging strollers and elbows and stares — he’s tall, he gets it. Finds himself waiting outside wine bars getting hand cramps from Angry Birds and boutiques huffing when the superior dress, skirt, romper goes unseen. Taking pictures of a woman obscured by giant shopping bags and even bigger sunglasses like he’s some kind of paparazzi. Ducking into a side street when she pivots to shout a block back, “Is this fun yet?” Rubbing at the heat creeping up his neck for the indignity, the interest her teasing provokes.

He finds himself, in short, living his life as a farce. And why? — Solo’s voice, Solo’s irreverence breezes through Illya’s fuming thoughts — Because fuck him, that’s why.

Knowing what he knows about the reasons and motivations behind this assignment only makes Illya resent it even more.

Gaby is doing something real, infiltrating THRUSH and assisting Waverly in getting to the bottom of whatever their agenda is. He wonders if Gaby or Waverly know anything about the vile von Trüsch was holding in the inner circle meeting. It could be vital. Perhaps he should get in touch with Waverly.

And what? Beg to be included? He isn’t needed.

The mid-afternoon heat bears down on Illya as he tries unsuccessfully to power-walk away from that truth. He doesn’t worry about losing sight of Gaby. She is a marked arrow on his Google Maps; her phone is, after a bit of tinkering in settings, essentially a tracking device.

Illya did explain that this function was possible to Gaby when they joined all of their accounts two years ago. She, always more mech than tech, just waved it off as ‘his thing.’ After she broke up with him, ‘his thing’ should have been to separate their accounts again. The fact that she never mentioned it justified his belief that he needn’t bother; she would come around any day now. He has been telling himself this for nine and a half months.

In his darkest period, Solo had shown up on his doorstep with two bottles of whiskey and a volume of Pushkin that Illya owned in Russian, first edition. They got drunk on the whiskey. Then got drunker on the vodka and gin that had been collecting dust in his pantry since the last time Gaby made his apartment a home. Solo brought Illya out of his long melancholies with terrible renditions of worse translations. He, who had too much ego and artifice to appreciate the ugliness of love, dared to criticize Pushkin. ‘Pushkin the pushover,’ he called him. ‘Love like your poets if you must, but for God’s sake don’t pine like them.’ At the time, Illya felt almost righteous clinging to his silent suffering.

Now he realizes what Solo was really saying to him — stop being so damned pathetic.

Google Maps shows his path and Gaby’s converging at a beachfront store just ahead. The layout is open air and glass, presenting a perfect view of the inside of the store from the smoothie hut next door. He orders a protein shake and takes a seat at a table that is too small for his legs to fit under. Through the glass, he can see Gaby browsing the sundress selection, but he finds he cannot watch her.

The memory of her face falling in the mirror warps in his mind’s eye. Pity. She pitied him in that moment. What had Tsvetaeva wrote? ' _The one that burned the hottest is the first to die_.' Gaby was the one to pursue him. He was convinced she was too beautiful, too vibrant for him, so he told her she was too young, too foreign. She’d won him over like a prize. And what’s the fun of a prize that’s already been won? It just sits there. No fun at all.

“Jesus, Peril.”

At the suddenness of Solo’s actual voice behind him, Illya can’t help but start and wrench around.

Bemused, Solo says, “I have never before in my life seen a man drink a smoothie more morosely.” He waves the small Foxton bag he’s carrying over Illya’s head. “Lose the rainclouds, Eeyore. The Olympic Commission finally came through — ” With a grand gesture, he indicates the sunlit ocean. “It’s the beach.”

Illya grumbles, “I thought cowboys preferred the desert,” and that, too, is pathetic. He’s so grateful for Solo’s company his foot moves of its own accord and pushes out the chair for him.

Brows lifted, Solo takes the seat with magnanimity. “Missed you, too, comrade.”

“Is Mrs. Vinciguerra not keeping you occupied?”

“I thought I saw your long shadow scurrying across the sand.” Solo raises his most genial smile to the pretty young woman behind the counter and they exchange a few words in Portuguese. Attention back across the table, Solo says, “Your foray into spycraft isn’t going so hot, I hear.”

Illya crosses his arms. Tries to appear remote. “What did she say?”

“This friendship cannot work if I break confidences,” is Solo’s virtuous, lying response.

“You break my confidence all the time.”

“But never hers. She’s scarier than you are.”

He snorts because it’s true and he likes it.

“What you both need is better PR.” Solo shows Illya an article on his phone. The headline reads, ‘Judoka Smash: How Will the Green-Eyed Monster Affect Kuryakin's Chance at Gold?’ Two professional shots, one of him bearing down on Dimler and the other of his face and Gaby’s angling into alignment. The Twitter response reads, ‘Kill me dead with this almost kiss,’ in all-caps and a string of exclamation marks. A blurry cell phone picture of Illya standing over the upset table is captioned ‘#teamrussia #canublamehim #shesaslut #protectmytolson.’

“Another woman wrote that about Gaby?” he remarks, disbelieving.

“Your terrible press in combination with your baby blues have endeared you greatly to a certain type of woman.” Seeming to sense Illya’s confusion, Solo puts up a hand. “We’ll circle back to internalized misogyny later. The point here is, you and Gaby are currently coming off less Hollywood rom-com and more real-life celebrity couple. If we want a happy ending the world will embrace, we’re going to need to do something to fix that.”

“Fix what?” That cloud comes over Illya again. “I want to marry her. She wants we should be what? What? Fuckfriends?” He can barely get the word out, the concept is so insulting to what they have been to each other.

“It’s actually — ” Solo sighs. “Nevermind. The more important idiom here is ‘don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.’”

The woman from behind the counter appears at their table, her cheeks the same flame-red as the drink she presents Solo. “Meu favorito.”

He savors the first sip. “Mm. Divino, Felícia.”

The two continue to chat in Portuguese. Solo had probably started teaching himself on the side way back when the Rio bid was accepted in 2009.

Illya doesn’t catch on that they’re talking about him until Felícia’s impressive curls start bouncing. “Sim, sim! ‘Slap-kiss.’” She flashes him a blinding smile, and Illya is helpless to do anything but grimace one back. Following Solo’s shameless pointing, Felícia spots Gaby going into a dressing room. She coos, “Ela é uma bonequinha. Little doll.” Her attention caught by a customer, she excuses herself but not before patting Illya’s shoulder. “Good luck.”

He wants to bounce his forehead off the table, but it’s so poorly constructed it would probably break and that, too, would end up all over Twitter. ‘What does Illya Kuryakin have against tables?’ with seven question marks and ‘#teamtable.’

Solo watches Felícia away fondly. “Utterly charming. Godawful taste in smoothies.” He continues drinking it, not even pulling a face. Ever the gentleman.

From its place almost in the middle of the tiny table, Solo’s phone buzzes with a message from ‘Chop Shop.’ Plucking it up from under his sightline with a flourish, Solo takes his time reading the message and sending one back. Every time a new message comes, he nods and murmurs to himself.

Since rolling eyes are soundless, Illya sucks down his protein shake with the strength of a hurricane.

Eventually, Solo does wince. “Do you mind?” He turns back to his phone, holding it out in front of him. “I’m trying to help our dear friend make a very important decision.” He swipes the screen. “She is bikini shopping.”

The plastic cup hits the table with great force. Illya leans over to snatch the phone away from Solo. Sure enough, there are six photographs of Gaby in six different styles of bikini. Even in the harsh light of the dressing room, she glows.

“I told her the blue suit,” Solo says. “Gaby looks great in vintage prints.”

“Mm.” Illya can’t disagree since the triangle cut is what he would recommend for the top. He flips back two pictures. Yes, he likes that. “But with the orange bottoms.”

“What’s wrong with the vintage skirt?”

“Nothing,” he shoots back. “If you are grandmother. The orange string bottoms go with the blue patterned top.”

Solo purses his lips. “It won’t match.”

Illya is incredulous and, frankly, offended that Solo has deluded himself into thinking he knows so much more about women than he does. “It doesn’t have to match,” he enunciates.

Solo heaves a sigh, snatching his phone back and shooting off another text.

A moment later, Gaby appears out of the dressing room wearing the orange string bikini bottoms and the light blue patterned triangle top. She spins in the large mirrors for the benefit of her audience. The effect is toned flatness and sleek contours for days, just as Illya knew it would be.

“You can — ”

“Yes, yes. My horse. Get back onto it.” Solo is buried in his phone, fingers moving rapidly.

“I had better not see those pictures on Instagram.”

“I knew you lurked on my Insta. There.”

Illya’s phone pings with a link to an address on a white background. “What is this?”

The look Solo fixes him with is pure condescension. “It’s a party invitation, Kuryakin. Starts past curfew, so do be late.”

“I fight in two days, and you expect me — ”

“Gaby expects you. Or at least she will expect you once I tell her you’re coming.”

“Don’t do that.” He sets down his phone, shoves the invitation away. “You want I should have my winnings docked? My position with the Ministry tested by negative performance reviews?”

“I want you to act like you give a shit.” Off Illya’s affronted huff, Solo disclaims, “Where Gaby can see it. Listen, the party is miles away from the Village. The word exclusive doesn’t even begin to cover it. No one with that invitation is going to be worried about tattling on you, believe me.”

“There is other — ” The chair creaks beneath him as he shifts. “I fight in two days,” he says again. “She knows I do not…” Illya trails off, frowning deeply at Solo’s feigned confusion. “Before a fight.” He leans back, arms over his chest. “Many serious athletes do this.”

Solo, satisfied that Illya is finished embarrassing himself, wards that concern off with his open palms. “All you have to do is show up for her. The rest is between you two.”

Illya drums his fingers on his arm.

Doing his best Mephistopheles, Solo says, “Break a rule or three for her — show her you care. You’ll be Gaby’s again in no time.”

A hope licks at him he can’t tamp down. “You sound like my mother.”

“Shura is as wise as she is lovely,” Solo lilts, knowing Illya can’t take exception to either of those remarks. And if he takes issue with the purr, well, then Solo wins. “I’m sure we’ll have lots to talk about over breakfast tomorrow.”

“Breakfast?”

“Waverly told me she’d arrived. I had a note sent to her room.” Solo stands and straightens the lines of his pressed shirt. “I’ll see you tonight. Wear something...”

Under his scrutiny, Illya bristles. He did his research; button-down shirts and chino shorts could not be more appropriate attire for a beach city.

Solo gropes for words. “Less punchable?”

“Anytime, Cowboy,” he says, pitching his voice for a fight they’d outgrow any day now. “We finish what we started.”

“Next year, hm?” Solo heads out. “Our ninth anniversary.” For the whole beach to hear, he trills, “Leather!”

Shaking his head at Solo’s retreating back, Illya grumbles through a smile he can’t fight. Solo has a way of cutting through the bullshit Illya puts himself through only to rile him up in new and potentially disastrous ways. He’s staring down the invitation so hard he almost jumps when his phone buzzes.

One glance at the photo, and he’s clutching the screen of his phone against his chest. On the second glance, he’s more prepared. The high Brazilian bikini cut accentuates every line and curve on Gaby’s body, even as it hides next to nothing. It’s the look on her face that gets him — before Gaby, he never knew that something as innocent as dimples could be so devilish.

In real time, Gaby is dressed and coming out of the store with her newest purchases added to her pile of shopping bags. She sends him a wink over her sunglasses before turning down the street.

Illya hastens in the opposite direction, feeling in his gut like he’s careening into oncoming traffic. His feet take him to the Foxton shop instead; there’s a party he needs to prepare for. Materially and emotionally.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter. This. Chapter. It just kept getting _longer_ and I...couldn't stop it? So much angst? Why, Illya? Why? 
> 
> But at least Solo does make an unexpected and much-needed appearance. And Illya's mother has arrived! 
> 
> Are there many fics featuring Illya's mother? If there are, I want to read them! I made a [pic spam](http://blueincandescence.tumblr.com/post/150761651430/gallya-olympics-au-supporting-cast-including) of the non-gallya cast members of this fic. I'm fancasting Jessica Lang as Mama K because she is perfection.
> 
> Next chapter is the midpoint reversal so, with any luck, it'll flow more readily.
> 
> Oh! And, little translation, Золотце means sweetheart but literally it means something more like a little piece of gold. In German "mein Goldstück" is similar. All that according to Google, mind.
> 
> Thanks for sticking with this!


	6. respect the time out zone

“It’ll be like a time out,” Solo promises her over the phone, and the freedom of that rushes through Gaby like a shot of Toradol for muscle pain. She talks over whatever else Solo was going to say to ramble for a long minute about how much she needs a break from the Russia feud, THRUSH’s big secret, her Illya imbroglio. All of it. Then she accepts the ultra-exclusive invitation and hangs up before he remembers he knows much cooler people he could invite.

The mysterious address Solo forwarded her leads Gaby to a sprawling estate situated inside the Rio de Janeiro Botanical Garden nature reserve. Even moonlit the drive up and along the coast is heartbreaking. She longs to make it with sunlight filtering through the various trees. She’ll be behind the wheel of something extravagant, a picnic basket in her passenger seat. Simple, maybe, but this fantasy is more vivid than any she’s entertained on mandated return flights to Berlin. Because it’s not just a fantasy. At the end of next week, she’ll have all the time in the world to see where the road takes her.

Her destination tonight is a massive glass-box mansion lit up by a spectrum’s worth of saturated lights. Whoever is throwing this party is new-wealth ostentatious. Gaby herself was born into heirloom squalor, though she hardly remembers it. The half-awe, half-consternation she feels confronted by luxury is a product of her brief stint in foster care. Get a load of those fountains; the water bill alone would cover the down payment on a modest garage.

A valet helps her out of her Uber and another scans her invitation. The valets and the waitstaff are the only people Gaby sees in formal wear. The casual Rio style has made its mark on the party, just as Solo said it would. She’s wearing one of her purchases from earlier, a light blue pinpoint checkered halter dress with a strip cut down the front, a minuscule hemline, and no back. For all its peekaboo sexiness, the material wears like pajamas. Years as a dress-up doll and she thinks she’s found her aesthetic.

The endless glass- and white-walled rooms are imminently wanderable. She trades fresh drinks for empty glasses as she goes, thirsty for a recess from Committee rules and oversights. Every room in this playland of a mansion is set up to entertain. Projector screens, gaming systems. Generous couch space for those coupling up and then some.

Most of the people she passes belong on Wheaties boxes. There are NBA players Gaby hasn’t seen around the Village because Team USA puts them up in superyachts docked in the harbor. There are people so absurdly beautiful they must be Brazilian models and television stars. Over by the VR station, she spots Usain Bolt splitting a shrimp platter with Ryan Seacrest. Snapping souvenir pictures to share with her teammates is tempting, but discretion is the soul of this party and she is loath to look out of place.

Here, Gaby is invisible. For the first time since she landed in Rio six disappointing days ago, she can breathe. Better, she can lose her breath as she does in a Dance Dance Revolution tourney. Gaby holds the mat five rounds and is proud to just barely lose out to the powerfully nimble Nicola Adams. Except for a few high-fives and some winks, Gaby doesn’t interact much with anyone. By quarter to one, the charm of that has worn off a little. It’s a bit too much like being ignored, and she’s had plenty of that this week.

She gets up from a nature documentary viewing in search of Solo, who can’t have run off with anyone this early in the party. He isn’t out on the panoramic deck entangled in the physics experiment going on in the jacuzzi, Gott sei Dank, nor in any of the voyeuristically-suited bedrooms. So she finds him in his other favorite haunt, the kitchen. Whoever he was entertaining has slipped out; the sliding door on the other side has only just closed.

“Didn’t mean to scare them off.” Gaby can’t get her eyebrow up as high as Solo’s, his defense against interrogation. “I don’t want to know,” she tells him, grand in her generosity. “What happens in glass houses stays in glass houses.” She frowns. “No. That’s Vegas.”

Solo grumbles something about Europeans and idioms, waving her over.

Several cocktails under in slingback stilettos, she teeters in to wrap Solo up in a hug, almost hitting him in the nose with the small clutch hanging from her wrist. “This party is amazing,” she gushes in his ear and pulls back to beam at him.

“Glad to hear it.” There’s something derisive in Solo when he asks, “See any friends?”

Snorting, she replies, “Oh, yes. Gisele and I were just swapping tips on winged eyeliner.” She’s tipsy but not so much so she doesn’t notice Solo is failing to return her enthusiasm. Gaby pats where his vest meets his crisp shirt. “I mean it, thank you. You can’t know how much I have been craving fun. Look.” She jiggles her arm. “Look how loose my muscles are.”

He feeds himself the last slice of salmon on the tray next to them on the counter. “We weren’t having fun with Peril this afternoon?”

Gaby shakes her head so hard it swims. “Mm-mm. No. You said time out.”

“Maybe you did get together too young,” Solo says, picking up the thread of a conversation she doesn’t remember having. “You’re developmentally arrested as teenagers.”

“You’re wrong.” When they were teenagers, her tactics may have been just as shameless — but they actually worked and never once made her feel spiteful or repellent. So the two of them must have changed somewhere along the way. She swallows what alcohol she has left. Goody for them.

Solo takes her glass and moves over to the row of drink carts.

“Vodka,” she says. “And I’ll take it to go if you’re in a mood.” Such an occurrence is as serious as it is rare, and she does not have the emotional capacity at the moment.

He fills her glass to the brim with the wrong clear liquid and pours himself three fingers of whiskey. She accepts the water only because she can drink more later if she’s hydrated.

He raises a toast to her. “To unintended consequences.”

“What does that mean?” With narrowed eyes she tells him she will only tolerate this time out from time out so long.

“We’ve gotten into a lot of trouble over the years, haven’t we?” It’s a wan try at cheer. “But it always seems to be Peril who bears the brunt of it.”

“That’s Oleg’s fault.”

“I won’t argue.” Solo affects a lean against the industrial-sized refrigerator. He sounds more like his implacable self saying, “But you’re poking a bear there.”

“He needs a sharp poke,” she grouses, hoisting herself up on the counter next to the knives. “He needs somebody to prove that everything he demands of his athletes — especially as kids — and you know that Illya hasn’t let slip the half of it. You know.”

“I know.” Solo had been the one to nickname Illya the Red Peril for good reason. If it weren’t for his mother, Illya at seventeen would have been a lost cause.

“His methods are bullshit. Dangerous bullshit.”

“But you must see how if Oleg loses so does Illya?”

Her whole body slumps against the tempered glass behind her. Not only does she want Illya to have his medal, the thought of a stadium’s worth of people booing at him turns her irrational. It was bad enough with Kalmurzaev, whose poise would have earned him a place with UNCLE if Oleg hadn’t recommended against admitting any more Russian athletes.

The whole thing is a Catch-22, and her grand plan for slap-kiss was supposed to be the loophole. Only the triumph of Illya almost kissing her right under Oleg’s pointy nose is long gone. She can’t even get a text back. All Illya gives her is the same look over and over. Pure betrayal, like he’s the only one in this with a heart.

Dry-mouthed, she leans over the sink to get more water.

Solo, reflected in the steel of the refrigerator, straightens his rolled sleeves and runs a hand through his hair. “To untangle your malapropism, the phrase is ‘people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.’ An excellent sentiment I want you to keep in mind the next time you find yourself feeling righteous.”

Gaby sips her water and stares out onto the colorful party forlornly. “This is my last Olympics.”

Pulled together by a smirk, the Solo she expected to find in the kitchen approaches her with his hands held out. “I’ll tell you what. I will introduce you to the celebrity of your choosing. If!” He gesticulates like the most handsome used car salesman who ever lived. “You promise me one very important thing.”

“Anything,” she says, eager for Solo to return her to the bubble of happiness.

“Closing Ceremony is my day. You, me, and Peril.” He slaps the counter next to her thigh. “Enjoying the sights. Even if none of us are on speaking terms.” He sticks out his hand.

Gaby shakes it, shaking off a half-formed suspicion at the same time. “Deal.”

“All right, bring it in.” He helps her off the counter onto wobbling ankles and offers an arm to steady herself. “Easy, Bambi. So, who’s it gonna be?”

“Oh, Swim USA’s most talented, most celebrated athlete is good enough for me.” She squeezes his arm affectionately, but Solo doesn’t fall for her trick; he intones with her: “Michael Phelps.”

She laughs and he pouts and that nostalgia she’s been dodging floods her with endorphins. It’s another fantasy to hold onto: a whole day of sightseeing, just the three of them bullying each other into friendship like old times. A real send-off. Her boys wishing her well as she departs for places unknown. The cracks they’ve left in each other’s glass smoothed over.

* * *

 After several celebrity introductions, a few more cocktails, and even more water, she peels herself off Solo’s side to make room for his admirers. “Don’t run off too far,” he tells her. “There’s a surprise coming.” His tone is so odd and foreboding she trades his whiskey for her glass of water.

Gaby follows the sights of the Sixties into a small room that turns soundproof when the door slides shut behind her. A handful of people, James Brown, mod color blocks, cutout lights, and a double-sided oblong couch in a gaudy burnt orange welcome her. Heels off, she curls up to semi-doze and listen to a group discussion on the undeniable merits of vinyl.

She’s finished Solo’s drink before Gaby realizes what she thinks is a headrest is actually the shoulder of the attractive man seated on the opposite side of the couch. His dimples beat hers as he grins away her startled apology and introduces himself as Oli Nwaubani of the Nigerian track and field team. Gaby is delighted to have never heard of him, a fellow normal. She nods in concert with his awe over getting an invitation.

“It’s an amazing retirement send-off,” Oli says, and Gaby perks up. Leaning in to hear him over the music, she hangs on his description of his post-athletics plans. He comes from a family of doctors and has already been accepted to med school, intending to focus on sports medicine and eventually help his sister run her youth fitness and nutrition nonprofit. Normally, hearing someone talk about their life plan with such confidence would throw Gaby into fits, whether out of claustrophobia or inadequacy. Oli’s confidence stems from passion not duty, and that seems to make all the difference to Gaby, who hums along and keeps her drooping eyes wide.

Oli trails off, an abashed smile splitting his handsome face. “Is this the part where I realize I’ve just made an ass of myself because your English ends at ‘What’s your event?’”

Gaby widens her eyes in mock confusion. “Ja?”

The laughter that rolls out of Oli is full-bellied and effortless and contagious and such a release.

Gaby basks in it a while before her training kicks in. She pitches UNCLE as best she can through the alcohol haze, saying it would be a perfect fit as a sponsor for his sister’s nonprofit. Oli puts his contact information in her phone with a joke about UNCLE being the strangest pickup line he’s ever gotten. Hand to her heart, she gasps over the accusation of false pretenses.

She’s still laughing when a loom comes over her, as unmistakable as it is out of place. Illya cuts a dark line as he steps into the flashing color of the small room. He’s carrying two cocktails. She half expects to see Solo pop his head in to confirm her surprise. And she is surprised. Shocked even, electrified.

“Sorry to interrupt,” Illya says formally. His attention flicks to Oli, who at some point became the only other person in the room with her.

Gaby’s bright laughter darkens. “Oli, this is my ex. He only speaks to me if another man has spoken to me first.” She snaps her fingers. “At which point he pops out of the ether.” A hand cupping the side of her mouth, she whisper-yells, “Otherwise, I don’t exist.”

The sound of Oli’s sigh is lost to Gloria Jones, but the disappointment is in his even tone: “That’s too bad.” He gets up with a dignity rivaling Illya’s, telling her he’ll pass along the message about UNCLE to his sister. He sends Illya the universal male nod on his way out, making Gaby roll her eyes so hard she ends up with her cheek on her arm.

For a long moment, “Tainted Love” is the only sound in the room. Then Illya says, “I did not ‘pop.’ Solo said you were waiting for me.”

Gaby doesn’t even know where to begin with that ridiculous statement, so she smacks at the low-hanging fruit. “Solo wasted an invitation to this on you? You never show up to things.” She wishes she had screenshots of every one of the texts she got from him after he changed his mind about coming out. She wishes when he’d asked her if she had fun she would have always told him the truth — it’s no fun dancing by yourself. She needed a partner.

“Solo did not tell you I am coming?” So cautious. Like he’s waiting for to play a trick, which of course makes her want to or at least make him think she is.

But this is time out.

“Nope,” is all she says.

Her eyes travel from the tips of his dark brown dress boots, up the extraordinary length of his slim fit black jeans, to the dark gray blazer and thin black t-shirt. The fabric would be so soft, so warm, so solid pressed between her palm and his chest. Illya shifts when her appraisal reaches the deepest v-neck she’s ever seen him wear and the whorls of dark blond chest hair it reveals. He carries off the look so damn well she can only tell he bought the mannequin because she knows him. How someone with such an eye for women’s fashion could be so clueless about men’s has long been a mystery.

Illya is moving foot to foot, jostling the cocktails. He came all the way up here, well after curfew, drinks in hand, under the impression that she was waiting for him. Whatever Solo’s reason for not telling her, for setting them up like this — Illya showed up.

Gaby reaches out for her drink. He comes closer to hand it over but still gestures for her permission to join her on the couch.

“It’s time out.” She sips her cocktail through the straw. “You can do whatever you want to do.”

He sits, stiff-backed in a side lean, where Oli was seated. He’s too tall for his shoulder to be her accidental headrest, but she leans her head against him anyway. It’s what she wants to do, no need to question it.

“What do you mean time out?” His voice is so close to her ear.

Her eyes flutter shut. “Whatever you want it to mean.”

It’s an eternity before he makes up his mind, before his arm lifts over the low partition and his fingertips brush the curve of her spine. She shivers and wants to make a crack about his perpetually cold hands to discount the goosebumps prickling her skin. Only that might make the featherlight touches stop. So she stays quiet, sipping her drink and listening to Wanda Jackson. He’s drawing patterns — the light, she realizes. Flower cut outs. Her lips curve around the straw.

“Gaby.” He breathes her name into the back of her neck. “How can you think you don’t exist for me?”

Her hand flexes against glass. That’s not what she thinks. Not exactly. It’s easiest to complain about being ignored. The truth about their relationship is so much more complicated. So much harder to live with.

Against the knot forming in her gut, Gaby lifts narrowed eyes and pursed lips. The movement slips his whole hand down her back. Her, “Hey,” gets caught in her throat. She swallows. Meets his wide-open gaze with an attempt at austerity. “Respect the time out zone.”

From the corners of his mouth, a smile tugs over his face. “Judo has no time outs. I am unfamiliar with concept.”

It’s hard to coax out his humor but she can’t help but relish the challenge. The slow bloom of warmth in her chest.

His hand sweeps up to span her shoulder blades, fingers rubbing into the exact spots he knows will melt her. “But I like it.” His thumb presses right where she needs it most.

She has to suppress a moan into the cushion.

Illya tsks. “How have you been training like this?”

Gaby returns his consternation, muffled: “It’s recent stress.” She lifts her head and slides her hand up his arm to the velvety hair at his nape. Watching his lips part, she says, “I was hoping you might help me out with that.”

Illya massages along her clavicle. “Maybe.” He clears his throat. “Maybe after judo final, we call another time out?”

That would mean concessions for them both. “Maybe,” Gaby says, grateful and disappointed. Maybe that will have to be enough.

He wets his lips, a discreet tell, but suddenly all Gaby can think about is how unbearable it would be to leave this room without being kissed. And how detrimental that would be to her resolve. The Illya whose thumb rubs gentle circles over her skin is the Illya she was nervous for the entire flight from Berlin. Her Illya. He must feel those nerves in her pulse because he strokes her there.

The opening strains of “Cry to Me” catch her ear, propelling her to her feet. She wobbles around to Illya’s side of the couch, glad she had the foresight to ditch her stilettos. He’s still got his full cocktail, so she takes that from him and tries to down it but mostly succeeds in spilling it down her front. She tosses the empty glass on the couch, watching Illya eye the trails of alcohol soaking into her dress. If it were any other song, she might worry about Illya not letting her take him by the wrists. But this song is theirs, so he doesn’t even roll his eyes as he rises for her.

Illya smiles down at her as they shuffle. Gaby can see the shy seventeen-year-old in him still, especially around the eyes.

“Rome,” she sighs, and he hums.

Before the Berlin Games, after their initial UNCLE training, Solo had insisted the first UNCLE function be a giant prom in Rome. The theme had been La Dolce Vita, Sixties Italy.

“It was the first time I saw you in a suit,” she reminds him.

“The first time I asked girl to dance with me.” He moves forward, out of her light grip, to take her by the waist as he had then. Gaby stretches her arms to his shoulders.

She danced with Solo, too, to make it look innocent. But later she used a trick Solo had taught her for just that occasion to sneak them into the hotel room overlooking the party. Solomon Burke floating in through the balcony double doors, they’d held each other close.

Gaby leans in, her cheek on Illya’s chest. The fabric of the t-shirt is as soft as she imagined, his chest as warm and solid as ever. “The first time you didn’t kiss me.” She tilts her chin up to find Illya’s head bowed toward her, eyes on her spreading lips.

Backing Illya up, his calves hit the couch and force him into a sitting position. This is what Gaby meant to do in Rome, when she misjudged the angle in her enthusiasm and sent them both toppling over the side of the sofa onto the floor.

“I went to all the trouble of tackling you,” Gaby says, lifting her knees to rest on either side of Illya’s lap. “I had you between my thighs.” His hands slip from her elbows to her hips. Her nose brushes his. “And you were looking up at me like this.” Those blue, blue eyes. “Leaving me to wait.”

His lips almost touch hers as he recounts, “You passed out on top of me.”

“From boredom.” The weight of her lashes drags her lids down.

“From drink. I think you may repeat this.”

Every syllable makes contact: “So keep me awake.” She pulls back a fraction. A dare.

Illya, cupping the back of her neck, pushes her in to meet his mouth.

The kiss mirrors their first, in Istanbul not long after Rome. Slow and deep with a hesitancy she powers through with heat. She lowers onto his lap and finds all that disinterest he’s been feigning up til now a smokescreen. Gaby rocks her hips and swallows Illya’s groan.

So easy to lose themselves to the delicious friction of hard denim against gossamer silk, of deft tongues and hands. His thumbs edge her dress, teasing her, until she bends and her bare breasts are in his hands.

“Ya mechtayu o tvoyem tele,” he rumbles, lips against her ear and fingers skimming her nipples. The syllables turn her shivery before the meaning slips past the fog in her brain. He dreams of her body — typical Russian hyperbole, only the reverence with which he kisses down the cut out in the front of her dress tempts her to believe it.

Grinding down harder, Gaby’s hips are elevated by strong, flexing fingers. Illya is looking over her shoulder, through the glass wall. Then he’s bouncing his forehead lightly on her arm.

“No one’s watching,” she soothes, wet kisses on his earlobe, the scar on his temple she’s never believed came from legitimate training, any patch of him in reach. She’s kept off his lap, but he lavishes attention on the bared strip of skin between her breasts. He laps at the sticky sweet alcohol residue. Head tilted back, she floats with the colors on the ceiling, the shivers Illya’s mouth draws from her. A Russian cliché tumbles from her own lips: _“I missed your body_.”

Illya’s hands grip tighter, his kisses slow. Against her chest, almost too low in his throat to make out, he grits, “ _I missed you_.”

Penalty, she wants to cry, throat gone tight. Foul play, low blow. Gaby brushes her cheek along his on her way down to rest on his shoulder. She closes her eyes against the torrent of conflicting reactions she is mercifully too drunk to examine.

Sigh strong enough to ruffle her hair, Illya shifts out from under her.

Gaby clings to him. She isn’t ready for time out to be over. The reasons she has not to spend the rest of her life inhaling him at his collarbone don’t exist in time out.

It is some consolation that Illya has to be the one to break them up. He sets her on the couch, adjusting her dress into something like modesty. Kneeling in front of her, Prince Charming starts to slip on a heel but she stops him. No way she can walk in those. He’d have to carry her out of the party, dying inside at the wrong conclusions people might jump to with every step.

Instead, she holds her shoes and clutch and Illya’s arm as they make their way outside. Her eyes are peeled to wave goodbye or flick Solo off, she hasn’t decided, but he’s made himself scarce.

At the valet station, she is enveloped in Illya’s blazer shoulder to thigh. The valet brings around the little Fiat Uno rental, and Gaby hides a grin against Illya’s side. Illya arranges her in the passenger seat, minding her head and fastening her seatbelt. She has to laugh when, knees jammed up around the steering wheel, he hauls himself inside.

He looks over at her, both feet up on the seat with room to spare. “Comfortable?”

She laughs some more, head lolling onto the seat belt strap. The sound of the engine, pitiful as it is, places her into a cozy haze. Illya’s profile flits in and out of filtered moonlight. Gaby watches him until her lashes are simply too heavy.

An indeterminate amount of time later, she hears her name and hums. “I said I’m taking you to my mother. Is closer. All right?”

“Da,” she mumbles. “ _I’ve been practicing_.” For some reason, that earns her a long exhale and his fingers stroking through her hair.

She falls asleep like that, only half-waking to make the short walk with him through the lobby. In the elevator, she locks her hands around his neck and sort of hangs there until he takes the hint to lift her. One of his hands is on her thigh, trapping her hem, and the other is across her back. “Spoiled,” he says, an endearment. She nuzzles back into his neck.

Illya continues to hold her inside the hotel room, carrying her with him as he opens a lamp, shuts the door adjoining the room to his mother’s suite, and gets a glass of water to place on the nightstand. Then, gently, he pulls back the covers on the bed and lays her down.

Gaby fights sleep, the end of time out. When he murmurs, “Goodnight, little Chop Shop Girl,” and tries to leave her, she clings to his hand, holding him fast with only her index finger hooked around his pinky. His fingers grasp hold, squeezing her hand. She squeezes back, eyes shut.

In a matter of moments, the lamp is closed, his shoes are off, and the mattress is sinking under his weight. She rolls into his arms. Covers separate them, but she is able to nestle into her favorite position. And falls asleep to tender Russian murmurs, his and her own.

* * *

Guilt wakes her, concurrent with her hangover.

Head pounding in the light, Gaby turns into the pillows and curls her limbs away from the cool space Illya no longer occupies. Left to her own devices, she tends to wake up in a twisted snarl of sheets, comforter kicked to the floor. This morning, she’s neatly tucked. Cracking one eyelid, she confirms the water, aspirin, Gatorade, and granola bar left on the nightstand. She breathes hard into pillow, working up the courage to lift her head. A pastel orange bag labeled Espaço Fashion in gold leaf sits on the footboard, eyeing her. Gaby heaves her face back into the pillows.

Does she deserve guilt? If Illya wants to kill her with kindness, that’s his prerogative. Time out is time out — except that when she told him it could mean whatever he wanted it to mean she was begging to be misunderstood.

Gaby doesn’t remember exactly what Illya said to her last night. Even the events are scattered. But she remembers how he made her feel. Trying to sleep with a man you agreed to marry and then split up with is one thing. Letting things get emotional? Irresponsible. Maybe even cruel, depending on how he’s deciding to take it. The pampering is a terrible sign.

An anguished flop of her head reveals a note left on the other pillow. ‘Went to training. Mother and Solo will be having breakfast. Join them when you can. Will be back’ sandwiched between the looping lines of their first initials. Each even-spaced sentence is one she is sure he was written to her before in some form. Brusque not with distance but intimacy. He assumes she’ll wait here for him.

The hotel stationary crinkles under her worrying fingers. So the thing to do would be to leave. Not the best thing, mind. That would be staying to calmly and rationally reaffirm her position. Maybe she’ll leave a note. Her thumbnail traces cursive letters. No, he might romanticize her handwriting, and then where would she be? Text is better.

Until then. She hoists herself onto an elbow to gulp the water and the Gatorade one after the other, while taking the the aspirin and then devouring the granola bar. Few things offend Illya faster than wasted effort.

Crawling out of bed is a feat worthy of the Ancient Greeks. Though were any Olympic judges present to see her wobble gracelessly to the shower they might rescind her medals. A barrage of knobs greet her in the shower, momentarily throwing Gaby off, but the rainfall shower head makes the concentration more than worth it. After so many days of locker rooms and exposed pipes, she could weep with the luxury of water at a temperature and pressure she controls.

Showered and blow-dried, Gaby approaches the Espaço Fashion bag. Inside is an orange-patterned romper she would never would have bought for herself — too bold, too expensive — but falls in love with instantly. It’s still so early Illya must have bought it yesterday evening after they parted in Ipanema. Which means she didn’t lead him on to this bit of pampering, at least. Last night’s dress reeking of alcohol as it does, Gaby puts on the romper. There are no tags to cut off. The nerve.

It occurs to her that in his flat in Moscow there might be a closet full of women’s clothes. That would be something Illya would do — on the assumption that she isn’t serious. His next girlfriend had better wear a size four, she thinks, trying to work up some indignation. Her stomach gives a nauseated flip in protest.

Time to leave. She’s just got her slingback heels on when she hears movement and voices from the attached suite. She loses precious seconds to escape finding her clutch.

The inner door is thrust open on Solo’s exclaim of “Gaby! Good to see you awake.”

She lets go of the handle. Turns a glare on Solo.

He’s already back turned back into Illya’s mother’s room. “Shura, Gaby is awake.”

Scheisse-meddler. As she makes her way across the room, she keeps the glare on him until she steps through the door. For Shura, she has a ready smile and wide open arms.

Getting used to Shura’s stiff, cool hugs has required separating Illya’s mother’s natural distance from her wariness of any sort of rival for her son’s affections. While they’d come to an understanding years ago, Gaby never really expected that wariness to leave her.

Shura, strong hands on Gaby’s arms, pulls back for assessment. “Well,” she concludes through her pursed lips and heavy accent, “You came to sense in the end.”

It takes every bit of discipline drilled into Gaby from childhood to wait until Shura has gone to call for room service to turn a look of apprehension on Solo. She mouths, “What did Illya tell her?”

“Nothing,” Solo mouths back, stepping closer. Under Shura’s voice, he mutters, “If you were after casual sex, you might have picked a different venue.”

“We didn’t,” she sputters. “We just — ”

“Spooned and argued over who loves each other more?” Solo guesses, smile grim.

“Don’t. I feel bad enough.”

His smile gets grimmer. “Toughen up, Teller. The morning’s only getting going.”

Gaby once again has to school her unease for Shura’s return. They arrange themselves in the sitting room. In a matter of minutes, room service arrives with tomato juice prepared to Shura’s instructions. One sip in, Gaby’s head starts to clear. Illya’s remedies are nice but no substitute for the personal experience Shura shares.

Keeping the conversation off her relationships status with Illya and on her rhythmic set is a dual effort Gaby shares with a suddenly very helpful Solo. She wants to shake all the warning and foreboding out of him. Illya showing up is almost a relief as he distracts his mother and Solo. Gaby stands, awkward and superfluous. Then Solo gets a call and Shura suddenly remembers something she left in the bedroom. The door closes most of the way behind her.

Illya, leaning against a writing desk, gradually turns his attention to Gaby. Or, more accurately, the romper she wears. She returns the favor, eyeing the fit of his jeans and the rolled up sleeves of his button-down. He knows how weak she is for his forearms. She saves her compliments and so does Illya if he has any.

Instead, he greets, “Good morning.” There’s a smugness around his mouth and shoulders that puts Gaby instantly on guard. “I enjoyed time out.”

Looking at the white carpet, Gaby clasps her hands in front of her. “We should talk about that.” Gott, she wishes she’d been faster in her escape.

He loosens his lean up even more. Waits.

Gaby gives up her composure to turn her incredulity on him. What on earth is he playing at? Does he think she’s about to fall at his feet begging to come back to him? She plucks at the fabric of the romper, saying as evenly as she can through her reinvigorated headache, “I appreciate your thoughtfulness. Give me the reciept, and I will pay you back.”

Holding his elbows, Illya slants an eyebrow down at her. “I get you present.”

“Bump the breaks, my Russian friend,” she scoffs. “I’m my own woman — remember?” She barks the word out almost like an order. Tries to swallow her temper even though she’s just encouraged his. “Illya, I’m afraid you’ve gotten the wrong idea.” Gaby almost winces. Amends, “I may have given you the wrong idea.”

Illya steps so close she can smell how freshly showered he is, see the damp ends on his bowed head. He keeps coming. “What wrong idea is that?” He’s close enough to kiss.

She forces herself to look up at him as she enunciates, “Your mother thinks we’re back together.” That gets through, takes the teasing right out of him. Was he just teasing? Relief and doubt and — there’s no denying it — wounded pride battle it out in her chest. “I didn’t have the heart to...” She drops her hand.

“Things are as they were,” Illya says, curt. “I will tell her.”

No need. Shura has made it to her tea cup and saucer without either of them noticing. “ _What was I supposed to think?_ ”

Avoiding her gaze, Illya’s proximity, Gaby steps toward Solo when he makes his return from the hallway. “I should get back to the Village,” she says. “I have an afternoon session.”

“Right now, you have a meeting with Mark Lin of ESPN,” Solo tells her. “You, too, comrade.” He cuts through Illya's disdain, her own refusal with three words: “You’re being blackmailed.” Any further protest drops off to ringing silence. Solo taps the doorframe twice and leaves them to gape.

Shura sips her tea. “ _You had better take care of it_.” She says it in Russian. Her steely-eyed stare, though, is directed at Gaby.

* * *

Lin has a brunch spread waiting at the out-of-the-way, pseudo-European restaurant she and Illya follow Solo’s rental to. Gaby sets herself up across from Lin, her elbows aggressively moving up his notebook and camera. Illya takes the seat beside her. The heavy quiet he has maintained since Solo’s pronouncement pricks at Gaby’s nerves. There is nowhere else for Solo to sit other than next to Lin. Doesn’t stop her from reading into the positioning. Gaby takes up the offer to eat, her butter knife sawing into a scone with her glare fixed on Solo.

Her suspicion is proven founded when Lin passes his camera to her. “These haven’t gone up yet,” he says and excuses himself for a moment.

Screen tilted toward Illya, she flips through photographs of herself, the only face not blurred, downing drinks at the party, damned by timestamps. Her thumb twitches through dozens of shots of her and Illya talking, dancing, going at it. Illya’s hand, anchored on her hip, protected what modesty she had left in a skirt that short. She told him no one was watching. Not a lie, not from her perspective. It’s impossible to tell on his impassive face whether he holds it against her.

Gaby puts the camera down, picks up another pastry to turn in her hands. Lin must have been the person she just missed in the kitchen with Solo, who must have given him the invitation on top of arranging for her and Illya to attend. Glass houses, he’d cautioned. Gaby whips the scone at his head anyway.

He snatches it out of the air. “Really? You’re going to attack me with puns when I’m trying to help you?”

“Help me,” Gaby yelps.

“Solo thinks we need better PR,” Illya says. Based on his tone, he’s been bored not brooding this whole time.

“It’s not that simple anymore.” Solo casts a baleful look at Lin, who rejoins them.

Gaby eyes the tasteful red and white shirt, blue jeans ensemble the reporter is sporting. She can’t spot brands the way the boys can, but she knows high-end when she sees it. “So, we give you money, you don’t use those pictures.”

“That’s not what’s going on here,” Lin replies, settling in. He looks almost friendly. “The pictures are going up. I can, however, be persuaded to delay the story out of respect for your competition tomorrow.” He nods at Illya.

“‘Respect,’” Illya monotones.

At the same time, Gaby says, “That’s terrible blackmail.”

Lin puts out his hand. “Whoa, let’s be less dramatic. Come on.”

“No matter when you put the pictures out, we’ll get fined.” Her coach might not care about her breaking the anti-fraternization policy, but she won’t be able to overlook the excessive drinking. As for Illya, on top of any fines, Oleg will no doubt get creative with his punishment. “So what’s the point of paying you?”

“That’s not what I’m suggesting. I’m suggesting better terms for our partnership.” Lin sits back, ankle on his knee. He really is attractive. It’s too bad he’s turned out to be such a dick.

Feeling Illya’s eyes on her, Gaby draws her arms in. “What partnership? I gave one interview.”

“Look, I don’t know what’s going on between you two. Lotta nuance, I’m sure.” Lin waves a hand between Illya and Gaby. “What concerns me is that it’s firecrackers where I was promised fireworks, okay? I’m losing clicks. My readers are getting bored.”

Illya shrugs. Gaby, who has a pretty good idea what’s coming next, hunches in on herself further.

“Solo told me all about the prop betting. Laying the bet doesn’t work without someone to verify it.” Lin gestures at his own camera. “But there’s an order to things. The trope is slap-slap-kiss for a reason. That’s what people want to see.”

Illya shifts forward beside her and Gaby winces. Solo is contemplating the crumbs on his plate. “You two placed bet on me?” Illya croaks.

“I was mad at you for stalking me,” Gaby murmurs, chin to her chest.

“Gonna wanna hear more on that later,” Lin puts in, loading up his fork with a slices of hardboiled egg, tomatoes, and cucumber. “All I’m saying now is if you two put in some effort, it’ll make my editors happy, it’ll make the internet happy, and we can all make some money. Split it four ways. If we get creative, it’ll more than cover any fines. Deal?”

“I think not.” Decisive. Very Illya.

Lin sighs.

Solo sighs. “Reconsider?”

“I am athlete. I am not Russian dancing bear for American reporter.” He flicks a resentful glance Gaby’s way. “Or anyone else.”

“Illya,” Solo says. “It’ll be easier if you just agree.”

The plea in his voice raises the hairs on her neck. Why invite Lin to the party? Solo’s celebrity friends aren’t going to take too kindly to a reporter in their midst. And he’d been moody all night, she remembers.

Lin riffles through his hardcover black notebook. “Kuryakin, a Yuri Kvasov has been your roommate at judo events for years. Is that correct?”

A thick line appears between Illya’s brows. “It is alphabetical.”

“Something Solo mentioned to me when he first pitched your story caught my attention. So I had a drink with Kvasov. He was very inebriated, so he probably won’t remember corroborating. But I did record it.” Lin flips back a few pages. “On July 30th, 2016, Solo private messaged me via Twitter, and I quote, ‘In all the infinite universes in all of space and time there exists not one where Illya Kuryakin and Gaby Teller can resist fucking each other in an Olympic Village.’ End quote.”

Gaby rolls her eyes. If only.

“Mark, stop,” Solo interjects. “Let me convince him.”

Gently, Lin asks, “How old were you at the Beijing Olympics, Gaby?”

Scheisse. Gaby drops her chin in her hands so hard her teeth click.

“You were fifteen,” Lin answers for her, face scrunched. “And he was eighteen.”

Illya had been eighteen for a month; Gaby was turning sixteen in three weeks. He wanted to wait. She liked making him break rules for her.

“While the age of consent in China is fourteen, the age of consent in England, where UNCLE is a registered nonprofit, is sixteen. I’m not suggesting there will be any legal recourse, but...well, this sort of thing makes people uncomfortable. And Gaby, with you still looking so young — ”

Gaby jerks her head up to cut him off with a searing glare. In the silence, Illya’s finger ticks against the metal chair.

“That’s it.” Lin gives an apologetic lift of his shoulder. “That’s the blackmail part.”

What had Solo said? They get in trouble, but it’s always Illya who bears the brunt of it. A bunch of internet trolls calling him a pedophile for the rest of his life.

With slow deliberation, Gaby places her hands on the table in front of her. She wishes Illya would look at her for a moment so she could communicate something, anything. But Lin is the focus of his shell-shocked fury.

“All right.” Gaby lets out a calming breath, hoping Illya will hear it over whatever it is he’s putting himself through inside his head. “We’ll cooperate. Slap-slap-kiss, and we’ll make some money.”

“Thank you.” Lin is eyeing Illya warily. “I’m not trying to screw you over here. People are gonna be watching your match tomorrow. You know, not many people but more people.” All he gets from Illya is rhythmic tapping. “You called me a glorified gossip columnist — you think I like that? Have you seen the shitty accommodations we’ve got in Media Village? I’m here because I love the Olympics. I’ve loved it since I was a kid. And I am, I’m a sportswriter. But advertisers don’t pay for sports writing no one reads. Do you know how many viewers the Olympics loses every year? That affects press and athletes both.”

Solo locks an arm across Lin’s chest, gripping him by the shoulder. “Ease off.”

Lin leans into Solo’s touch, beseeching. “Me? Your boy Ivan Drogo looks like he’s gonna punch my lights out.”

“Well, he might.”

Illya’s expression flickers into something only about fifteen degrees off from homicidal glee.

“Boys,” Gaby cuts in before Lin has an assault charge to hang over their heads, too. “Lin is in a tough spot he’d rather not be in, and Solo put him there. And he loves the Olympics. That’s three things we all have in common. We can work this out.” Turning to Illya, Gaby rests a gentling hand on his wrist. To his hard profile, she says, “I’m going to take care of this. You don’t even think about it. You worry about competing tomorrow.” His iced-over eyes finally meet hers. She almost whispers, “It’s going to be okay.”

Giving her no indication of whether he believes her — And why should he? Has she ever kept a promise she’s made to him? — Illya at least does as she says. He stalks off to his car, hands jammed deep in his pockets.

“You want a real story,” Gaby says, still watching Illya go. “So how about instead of running Illya and I through the whole gamut of humiliation theater, you join Solo and I in investigating my uncle. THRUSH is planning something nasty. When we find out what, you can break the story.”

“If that’s true, then happy to. On top of at least something to tie off the slap-kiss story I never asked to write.” Lin stands. He drops reais on the table for the bill and a careful hand on Solo’s shoulder. “I’ll be in touch.”

Solo snorts, bitter under his placid amusement.

Alone, Gaby and Solo eye each other across the table. He indicates the pile of scones between them. “Shall I take cover?”

Gaby shakes her head. “You were right. We owe it to Illya to protect him better.” And she will, going forward. Even if it has to be from herself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ::Checks word count for this chapter.::  
> ::Rubs eyes in disbelief.::  
> ::Thinks about when this AU was supposed to be porn-without-plot.::  
> ::Looks for porn, sees only plot.::  
> ::Flops onto floor in defeat.::  
> Your guess is as good as mine, folks. Mad love if you’re still reading.


End file.
